


A Walking Shadow

by MalevolentReverie



Series: The Catharsis of Son Goku [1]
Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Darkfic, F/M, POV First Person, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-06
Updated: 2013-11-26
Packaged: 2018-01-02 17:43:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 31
Words: 62,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1059702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalevolentReverie/pseuds/MalevolentReverie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Death brings out the evil in Earth's greatest hero.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

There are two things in life that you cannot bargain for or against. When you’re old enough to have a job, the most prominent at that point is taxes, an inescapable and aggravating fact of earning money for yourself. Looking back, I’m not sure how I ever became “normal” and managed to live alongside other people. Half of me was a primitive beast waiting to erupt at any moment and wreak havoc but I kept it under wraps when I began living on my own. There was no other option.

The second inescapable fact of life is the reality of death. Sure you go on living every day like you’re immortal but soon you’ll be faced by your own morality; by the painful realization that you will not exist forever. Death played a major role in my life around my sixteenth birthday and I was almost torn to shreds by what it did to me. It wasn’t that I lost anyone important. That didn’t happen for many years, thankfully. A vague entity in my life was taken by the cold hands of death and well… that made someone else lose their mind. 

It’s hard for an immortal to understand that the people around him will eventually turn to dust. They will disintegrate in the earth while he keeps wandering its surface alone, doomed to live an eternity of regret. Sometimes, the pressure of that realization becomes so great that they lose their mind and in the process cause other people a tremendous amount of heartache. The dead are pretty lucky if you think about it, because they don’t have to shoulder the responsibility of life.

**~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~**

“Bulla, I wish you’d put your phone down at the table.”

My fingers flew across the on-screen keyboard as I texted my friend, Valese about what my plans were for my sixteenth birthday. First I needed to get my learner’s permit to finally get some wheels on the road, then I needed to throw a party in my basement, then I needed to convince my father to bring me out shopping for some new clothes. So many things to do yet so little time. Teenage life was tough.

Mom raised an eyebrow and glanced at my father, who was too busy examining the newspaper to care. The constant years of peace had made everyone slow down a lot. Dad mostly hung around with mom and I while Trunks was off training to take over Capsule Corp. Being the only child was the greatest gift that had ever been bestowed upon me, even better than getting a new car for my birthday. I sent out my text to Valese and stuffed some cereal in my mouth.

A sharp jab in the ribs told my father he needed to man up and tell me to listen to my mother. Vegeta cleared his throat and gestured vaguely at my phone, keeping his eyes glued to the paper.

“Do what your mother says,” he said.

“Why?” I asked, obnoxiously chewing.

Dad huffed, starting to redden in the cheeks. “Because I said so. Put the phone down before I smash it again. Or perhaps I’ll throw your car into the lake. Kakarot’s granddaughter wouldn’t refuse her own vehicle to drive around in the their backwoods little—”

“Don’t talk smack about Pan,” I said. “She’s becoming sort of cool. Just a little, though. When Gohan finally caves and gets her a cell phone I might let her into my circle.”

“Wasn’t Pan a… creepy nerd?” mom said as she rubbed dad’s back. “I think it’s a mix of her growing up with Gohan and Goku so closely. Poor Videl tried to keep her from becoming a tomboy but that didn’t work out too well. At least she has a brain to carry her through life.”

The indirect insult didn’t bother me too much. I was a little lazy. Who cares? I ate another mouthful of Cheerios and my phone vibrated loudly, making mom sigh in exasperation. Dad hid his face behind the newspaper to avoid getting involved in an argument but I leapt to my feet when I saw the name and headed for the door. My friend Shoppa was outside waiting to pick me up and there was no way I’d keep her waiting. Mom yelled something about me needing to take out the trash.

When I got outside Shoppa pulled down her sunglasses to wink at me over the edge and I climbed over the open car door to sit in the passenger seat. There were a bunch of empty bags from different stores in the back which meant she was in the mood to go shopping again. She played around with her short blonde hair for a few moments and drew up the convertible top. I couldn’t wait to have my own glossy red car at the end of the day. I’d drive myself to school, maybe get a job. It’d be awesome.

“Happy birthday!” Shoppa squealed as we hit the highway. “Sixteen is the best. Soon we can start driving around and blowing your gas instead of mine.”

I rolled my eyes and pulled down the mirror to check my makeup. It was a bit off, but not too bad for how quickly I put it on. When I was out shopping I needed to find the perfect outfit for my party. It needed to be something dramatic but not too intense. I wanted to be the center of attention, not a drama queen. Still, did it really matter? Everyone I went to Orange Star High with was afraid to gossip about me because both of my parents were incredibly powerful people.

The mall was a packed as usual when we arrived and I had to push my way through the crowds with Shoppa to get to my favorite store. A few dresses caught my eye and I brought them to the changing room to see if any of them fit. On the way, I suddenly felt a heavy hand on my shoulder.

“Hi, Bulla!” said a familiar voice.

I turned to see none other than Son Goten standing behind me with Valese, who immediately hugged me tightly. It didn’t really surprise me to see them there—Valese loved shopping almost as much as I did and Goten loved Valese as much as she loved wandering around the mall for five hours. It was still a bit surprising to see Goten out and about with her. I hadn’t seen anyone from the Son family for a few months now. Gohan and Videl had their hands full with Pan, Goten worked to help support his parents and Goku… well, he was Goku. He was always training for the next threat to attack Earth.

We chatted for a few minutes about my party and I invited Goten to come along with Valese. Shoppa’s green eyes focused intently on my fellow half-Saiyan and when they finally left, she let out a sigh like she’d been holding her breath the entire time. Sure, Goten was attractive, but I didn’t like older guys very much. He and Valese were perfect for each other in a lot of ways and it was easier with her graduating high school in the next few months. I was still a sophomore with years to go.

Yes, life was wonderfully simple most times. Things were about to get much more complicated.


	2. Two

The decorations for my party were being set up when Shoppa and I came home a few hours later. I ran my new clothes upstairs while dad and Trunks worked on hanging streamers—the faint sound of them arguing followed me until I shut my bedroom door. Shoppa collapsed on my bed and sighed heavily as I set out the clothes I’d be wearing for the party. I decided on black pants and a red shirt, something that would really piss my parents off. Dad always scowled when I came downstairs in “lecherous” clothes.

Shoppa twirled her hair around a finger lazily. “You better hurry up and get ready. Everyone’s gonna be here soon and you do not want to go out dressed the way you are. Hopefully your mom made some good food this time around instead of that nasty junk from last time.”

“I keep forgetting you’re a five star chef,” I said. “She sent out for the food this time so it’s gonna be fine. You just lay there and keep looking pretty, okay?”

“No one needs your sarcasm, Bulla.”

I smirked and admired my reflection in the full-length mirror, twirling around like a ballerina. Mom liked to say I’d inherited the best traits of her and dad. My entire life I’d been told I was beautiful and perfect the way I was, yet I still had the cynical nature of my father. Trunks was a bit gentler like mom but he had toughened up a bit when he took over Capsule Corp, just to make sure the business remained as successful as it had been for so many years. Less was expected of me.

It didn’t upset me, though. I was happy to live a simple life with my parents glancing over my shoulder for me and keeping everything in check. My grades weren’t terrible, I had too many friends, and most importantly I was happy. The Earth had been peaceful ever since Omega Shenron was defeated and everyone sort of lapsed into normalcy after that. The last time we had seen the Son family was at Pan’s twelfth birthday and Goku hadn’t even shown up. Chi-Chi spent the whole night staring at her drink.

There was a knock on my door and I gave the visitor permission to enter. Trunks peered inside, clearly afraid he might see Shoppa or I naked, then relaxed and fully pushed open the door. He pushed his glasses up on his nose when Shoppa smirked at him and I spritzed some perfume on my neck. If she gave one more guy her famous “come hither” look, I was gonna throw her out.

“Everything’s ready downstairs,” Trunks said. “A few of your friends are already here waiting for you. I have to head back to the office for a meeting but I hope you two have fun tonight.”

“Thanks,” I said, fluffing my hair a bit.

“We always have fun,” Shoppa added.

Trunks nodded quickly and excused himself, vanishing from the room as quickly as he came. Shoppa sighed like a deflating balloon and kicked her feet against the frame of my bed. I turned back to the mirror to fix my makeup before I headed downstairs. There was a tiny speck of blue sparkles next to my eye, almost like a teardrop. It looked kind of dramatic so I decided to keep it and stepped back to pirouette one more time, making sure everything about my outfit was perfect.

“Finally!” Shoppa said when I opened the door. “I thought we were gonna die in here.”

We ran downstairs to see my parents greeting even more guests. Well, mom was doing the greeting while dad glared angrily. I hugged a few girls from school and said hi to the guys to avoid looking “grown up” in front of my father. Almost everyone I had invited decided to show up which meant we’d have a full house down in the basement. I toyed with my hair and offered the plastic smile my mother wore when people she only mildly liked came over to visit. Yes, she’d taught me well.

The boom of music playing in the basement shook the floors and I could smell the open boxes of pizza thanks to my incredible alien nose. Being half Saiyan wasn’t something I was proud of—I didn’t want to learn how to fly, I didn’t want to fight and I didn’t want to watch dad and Goku beat the crap out of each other. The human in me was much stronger and yearned for the basics, like friendship and routine. My stomach growled and I grimaced. My appetite was the only thing I couldn’t change.

Dad caught my arm when I tried heading to the basement with Shoppa, but he signaled for her to go and pulled me aside so I was directly between him and mom. That was not a good place to be. It usually meant they had something serious to say. Attacking me together was better than going at it alone, especially because dad was a bit afraid to question me. 

My mother’s bracelets jangled when she put a hand on my shoulder. “Bulla, please be responsible. We’re trusting you to keep everyone in check, okay? No alcohol, no drugs, and no sex. Your father can sense energy so don’t think you’ll get away with it.”

I turned to look at dad. His eyes were closed and his arms were folded. Typical position.

“Don’t worry, mom,” I said. “I’ll make sure no one does anything crazy.”

She searched my eyes for a few moments, hunting for a lie, then smiled and gave me a gentle push toward the basement door. I winked at her and hurried down with a pounding heart. This was it, my first genuinely important birthday. All of my friends were at my house to celebrate with me and my parents trusted me enough to let me hang out in the bottom of our house without their supervision. There was no way my night could’ve gotten any more perfect.

The moment my feet touched the cement floor I was hugged fiercely by a girl wearing a familiar orange bandanna. Pan didn’t let me go for a few seconds, smiling and tangling her black hair while she nuzzled my shoulder. A few people glanced at us and I peeled her off me, setting her not too gently on the floor. She clasped her hands in front of her and beamed happily. Okay, so I lied. She was still really weird and honestly needed to start dressing like a girl before she was bullied to death.

Pan bit her lower lip, trying to contain her excitement. Her black eyes bored into me. “Hiya, Bulla! Mom and dad said I could come to your party! They gave me chips and soda to bring! And some CDs by a band called… uh… I think it says something about lead…”

Dear god, Pan was such a dweeb. I set a hand on my hip as I glanced over her outfit, wondering if there was any way to save her. The bandanna had to go of course, along with the bogus fingerless gloves she wore. There was only a year age difference between us and she never got the clue that being a teenager meant you had to ditch the boy clothes. Gohan and Videl raised her in the mountains, though, and her first year of public school at Orange Star was sometime next year. So sheltered and simple.

“Great,” I said flatly. “Where’s your uncle and Valese?”

“Oh, they’re coming. Uncle Goten is gonna keep an eye on me and bring me home later before he goes to sleepover at Valese’s house. Do you think I could sleep over?”

“We’ll see. Take off the bandana and gloves first.”

A confused look was Pan’s reply until she realized what I was saying. While she took off her favorite articles of clothing I moved on to get myself a soda, praying that no one had snuck booze into the party. Dad could smell it no problem even from upstairs and he’d throw everyone out if even a whiff of alcohol reached him. I reached the drink table and was pleased to see it had been decorated well—bright colors, no lame plastic tablecloth or red cups. It looked both tasteful and youthful.

After I poured myself a drink, the night was nearly over.

For a while I slipped between different conversations, behaving like the social butterfly I truly was. It was easy for me to pick up on important pieces in chats and run with it to keep people interested. Combined with my mild case of narcissism, I’d be a fantastic politician. Everyone was dressed to the nines and the basement smelled like cheap perfume, giving it more of a whore-house feel than a sweet sixteen as the minutes dragged on. Life was easy. It was long. It didn’t seem to have an end. I smiled and laughed, I sipped soda; I avoided Pan like the plague as she wandered around clinging her bandana.

The time was 9:04 PM when the worst happened. 

The door flew open and dad came down the stairs so fast I was afraid someone stupidly tried to sneak drugs into the party. His eyebrows were drawn together not in anger, but… remorse? He briefly glanced at me as he pushed through the crowd, moving people’s heads out of the way to find someone in particular. I politely left my current chat and followed after, struggling to get past the writhing bodies. It was getting late. People were antsy.

When I found dad he had grabbed Pan by the arm and was dragging her upstairs. I knew better than to ask questions so I hurried after them while more than half the party watched. Pan didn’t go quietly: she was annoyed and let it be known. Her bandana fell on the floor on the way out.

At the top of the stairs the door was slammed shut and I could see my mother’s shoulders noticeably shaking as she nodded her head to a conversation on the phone. Dad let Pan go and looked away at the floor, apparently uncomfortable with what was about to happen. My stomach was doing somersaults. What the hell had gotten my father so upset? What did Pan do?

Mom turned around. She was sobbing so hard her mascara was staining her cheeks. The phone buzzed into gradual silence and Pan wrung her hands nervously.

“Pan,” mom said, “your father is coming to get you.”

“What? Why?” Pan was really panicking now. “Is something wrong? I didn’t bring anything in besides soda and chips like mom told me to. Please don’t be upset with me, I swear—”

“Kakarot’s wife is dead,” my father snapped.

That was the beginning of the end.


	3. Three

There were no words for a few moments after dad’s angry outburst. Mom stared at Pan until her eyes started tearing up and quickly wiped them away so she didn’t look weak. Dad clenched his jaw until his guilt gave in and he went over to hug mom as she burst into tears. Pan made a weird choking sound.

“Grandma?” she said. “What… what happened to grandma?”

I had never known Chi-Chi very well but it definitely came as a shock that she had actually died. Seeing mom so heartbroken was hard for me, too. I watched dad pat her on the back with a grim look on his face and realized he was equally as upset. They’d all been friends for years. It only made sense. There was no other reason my father would be showing any kind of emotion.

“It was a heart attack,” dad said gruffly. “She died in her sleep. Kakarot woke and noticed she wasn’t breathing, but it was too late by then. Her offspring are already at the house.”

“Grandma can’t be dead,” Pan said. Her black eyes were terrified.

“Are you positive?” I asked, siding with Pan a bit. “That’s so sudden.”

Mom started crying even harder and I immediately shut up, afraid dad would give me one of his famous death glares. Chi-Chi was seriously dead, gone beyond the power of Shenron or even Goku. She had died from perfectly natural causes so there was no way to bring her back again. As that fact set in Pan was suddenly hugging me and sobbing, staining my new shirt with her tears. My back immediately bristled but I sucked it up and gently embraced her after a minute. Apparently my party was over.

We stood in the kitchen with mom and Pan wailing like it was the apocalypse until the doorbell rang. Dad carefully extricated himself from my mother to go downstairs and tell everyone to leave, which gave me the prestigious position of letting the visitor inside. Whoever it was would be walking in on crying fest that had no end in sight.

When I detached myself from Pan to answer the door she simply sank to the floor and gripped her head as if it would explode. My mind was swimming from the intense emotion I was seeing all around—never before had I seen so much pain at one time from anyone. I curled my hair behind an ear and pulled open our huge front door just to be confronted by even more crying people.

Neither Videl nor Gohan had changed much over the years. They dressed like adults now and styled their hair differently; the usual. Other than that, it was like looking back into the past. I stepped aside when I saw Videl was teary-eyed and she immediately headed for Pan, kneeling down beside her daughter on the floor. Pan flung herself on Videl and the two started sobbing even harder.

Gohan was stone-still. His black eyebrows were drawn together over even blacker eyes, intently focused on remaining calm under stress. He nodded curtly to me and stepped inside without saying a word. There was severe stiffness in the way he walked. Reining in his emotions was a full-body endeavor that involved every ounce of concentration; he couldn’t afford to slip up. His wife and daughter were in hysterics. He couldn’t even cry over his own mother’s death.

The party downstairs quickly disbanded and headed out the way it came. Everyone was solemn and murmured apologies through the door, which I merely nodded to. The worst part of everything was seeing everyone else cry. Like I said, I didn’t know Chi-Chi that well. She was mom’s friend and that was that. Nothing else to the story.

When dad came back upstairs he gave Gohan a hard shake, communicating he understood the position he was in. Gohan swallowed hard and tried to speak.

“The wake will be Sunday,” he said. “Dad doesn’t want to see an open casket so we’re buying her right after. The doctors said she died peacefully, which we’re all happy about. But we all need to keep an eye on dad and pitch in to help him when he needs it. Mom took good care of him so he isn’t used to being on his own. I hope it isn’t too much to ask.”

“Of course not,” dad said a bit coldly. “Kakarot has saved the entire universe several times. I think we can all sacrifice some time to give him the help he needs.”

Mom was sniffling now. Her face was puffy and red. “Anything. Bulla can help with laundry and dishes and I’ll be more than happy to send over Goku-sized meals every day. How’s your brother doing, Gohan?”

“He’s over at the house with dad and Valese. He’s crying just as much as dad.” Gohan ran a hand through his spiky hair and tugged on his tie. He definitely wanted to cry, too. “Mom was talking about all of us getting together for Bulla’s birthday. I feel bad. She liked when we were all together.”

It annoyed me a little that they were passing off some of the blame on me. What was I supposed to do, invite everybody and their brother to my party? Chi-Chi would’ve had a heart attack either way. And who said I wanted to deal with Goku’s nasty dishes and clothes? I had other obligations besides the lives of my mother’s friends. Dad sat home all day. He could do something, too.

I was sent up to my room to get changed so we could all visit Goku together and make sure he was feeling okay. Black wasn’t necessary until the wake but I put on darker colors so I didn’t look completely obnoxious. As I checked my reflection I noticed the teardrop glitter was still next to my eye. It couldn’t hurt to leave it where it was.

When I came back downstairs everyone was ready for the flight. Pan had fallen asleep in Gohan’s arms and Videl looked equally as exhausted. Dad had an arm around mom as we took off into the air, flying slowly toward Mt. Paozu. Everyone in our flying formation looked incredibly depressed except for me. I honestly felt left out of the depression. Everyone else actually knew Chi-Chi.

We flew through the cool September wind, followed by trails of whirling leaves until we arrived at Goku’s house. There was smoke curling from the chimney to meet up with the black sky and I secretly thought the setting couldn’t be any more perfect. She died at such a dramatic point. It was when summer gave way to fall, where trees dropped their leaves to begin anew the next spring. 

Everyone crammed their way into the small house. A few candles were lit to stave off the encroaching darkness that further brought down everyone’s mood. I stuck close to my parents as movement was heard from upstairs and waited for the widow to make his way down. The footsteps dragged a lot. Someone murmured to him and he trudged down the steps, giving us a view of his blue training boots before Goku himself appeared in the flesh.

The savior of Earth certainly looked haggard. His hair was even more unkempt than usual and he had the same puffy red face my mother sported. Normally he stood tall and proud with his shoulders squared but he was hunched like a cripple, practically leaning on Goten for support. His youngest son nodded toward Valese and she helped Goku sit in a small armchair. His bottomless black eyes bored into the floor as we all moved closer to give the illusion of comfort. There was no relief for him.

My mother once again burst into tears and flung herself on Goku, hugging him tightly around the neck. Dad didn’t even blink as they fully embraced. He knew they had a long history. It had been the three of them for a long time—just him, Bulma and Chi-Chi. I clasped my hands politely in front of me.

“We called Krillin,” Goten said hollowly. “He’s coming down Sunday with 18 and Marron. Same goes for Yamcha and Tien. I’m sure Piccolo already knows and he might come. Emotions scare him.”

“I could’ve told you that,” said Gohan.

“Goku, please stay at my house tonight,” mom said, releasing him from the hug. “You need the support of your friends. You shouldn’t be out here alone in the wilderness. We can have a big breakfast tomorrow in honor of Chi-Chi.”

No response. Goku just nodded, now gaining the thousand-yard stare.

After that there was a lot of talk about the funeral that I really didn’t want to hear. Growing up around the Dragon Balls meant death wasn’t a possibility for me, but there I was, seeing it before my own eyes. I excused myself to go sit outside on the steps for a breath of fresh air. It helped clear away the guilt I was feeling over Chi-Chi dying on my birthday. If only we had made the effort to see the Son family more often, maybe it wouldn’t have happened.

While I was sitting there gazing at the thick line of trees the door opened again and another body sat beside me. Dad rested his arms on his knees and heaved a sigh. Yet another thing I never heard out of his mouth. Geeze, he was really losing it over this woman dying.

“It bothers me that we have so much in common,” he said. 

“I’ve never been much of a crier.”

“Well you’d better learn how. This woman meant the world to your mother. I want to see a few tears come out of those eyes, especially during the wake.”

“Look, I barely knew her.” I leaned my weight on my palms to look up at the sky. “That’s the only reason I’m not crying. Eveyone here knew her well besides me. I bet Marron won’t cry, either so quit being so critical of something as dumb as tears.”

“I’m asking for an effort, Bulla. For a half-Saiyan you hide your emotions very well.”

Annoyed, I got to my feet and dusted off to head back home. Everyone could cry all night but I was sick of it. Death wasn’t that bad.

Dad watched me flying off until I was hidden by the horizon.


	4. Four

My so-called friends blew up my phone for the rest of the night. I ignored most of the texts and listened to a few apologetic voicemails but I wasn’t interested in their sympathy. When I had taken a shower and was in my pajamas I climbed into bed with a bowl of Cheez-Its to watch TV. Cartoons were the best at distracting me so I turned it to some kids’ channel and leaned back in bed to enjoy the mindlessness. No one came home for a long time.

A crying jag struck me when I saw a happy family flash across the screen and I kind of let it take over for a while. It felt good to let out some emotion. Seeing all their pained faces was enough torture for me, especially when mom started wailing like dad died or something. Tears streamed down my face as I tried to stuff more Cheez-Its into my mouth to keep the blubbering at a minimum. Poor Pan. Poor Goten. Poor Gohan. Poor Videl. Poor Goku. All the sympathy in the world couldn’t bring Chi-Chi back.

Later on that night I heard the door open and shut downstairs. Mom was talking quietly to someone and there were feet on the stairs as they made their way to the guest bedroom. I slid down further under my sheets and wiped my eyes in case they stopped in for a surprise visit. Bulla Briefs did not cry.

Everyone settled down an hour later and it seemed like we’d have a mildly peaceful night. Around two AM, when I had switched to watching horror movies, I heard heavy feet dragging down the hall. It wasn’t my mother—she stepped light and quiet. Dad moved with purpose. This person was heavier than them and didn’t care about being heard. I quickly put on my slippers and peered out my door.

Goku was already halfway downstairs, holding what looked like… the Dragon Balls? For a minute I debated getting my parents instead of following him, but he could’ve been doing something stupid because of how sad he was. I silently slipped out of my room and hurried down the stairs after him. There was no way I’d let him make my mother even more upset.

When he was outside he took off into the air and I tried to follow while pushing down my energy level. Goku was the strongest man in the universe; he could easily detect me if I wasn’t careful. As we flew over the forest I wondered why he didn’t just use instant transmission. Was he too upset to focus?

We landed in the middle of a clearing where Goku set down the Dragon Balls and dropped to his knees, sobbing. I hung back near a tree at the edge of the forest to watch the scene unfold, heart pounding a mile a minute. Should I intervene? Shenron wouldn’t let him make a stupid wish, right? My fingers tightened around the tree trunk until I started bleeding.

The sky turned cloudy and the huge emerald dragon came spiraling out of the portal between our dimensions, focusing on Goku with his bright red eyes. The savior of Earth was crying so hard he couldn’t even make a wish but Shenron didn’t demand he hurry it up as he usually did. Soon Goku managed to control himself enough that he could speak, but it sounded raspy and broken.

“Please bring her back,” he said, now on all fours. “Please bring Chi-Chi back. She didn’t die from natural causes, right? I think someone might have scared her to death and that doesn’t count. When I woke up to get some food she… she wasn’t even breathing. She was cold and stiff.”

Shenron looked down at Goku almost sadly. “You know that is beyond my power. I cannot bring back those who are rightfully dead.”

“Make a clone of her,” Goku said. “I need her. I can’t live without her.”

“Son Goku, you must accept what has happened and continue fighting for what is right in the world. You were gifted immortality to protect the universe for all time. Mortals are fickle beings, flickering like a flame, moving where the wind takes them. Your wife is at peace. Do not pity the dead.”

“I don’t want immortality!” Goku screamed. He pounded his fist on the ground so hard that the tree I was clinging to shook. “I want to die with her! I don’t want to watch everyone around me disappear like this. What about my sons? And my granddaughter? How am I supposed to live forever if they’re all going to die no matter what I do?!”

“You are burdened with a fate unlike any other man. Be at peace, Son Goku. There is always relief.”

The great dragon vanished back into the Dragon Balls after that. Goku picked up the four-star ball and started demanding Shenron come back out to grant his wish but the sky returned to normal and he remained hidden away. I shook my head and turned to leave. He wouldn’t be doing anything tonight.

“B… Bulma? Is that you?”

Fiddlesticks.

“No, it’s Bulla,” I said. “I saw you leave and wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Oh. Well, thank you.”

This was the most interaction I’d had with Goku since… ever. I smiled a bit and started to walk away, only to be followed into the woods. Goku carried the Dragon Balls carefully, clearly hoping Shenron would change his mind and come back out to grant a wish. It was so weird that we were walking. Flying was way faster and you didn’t trip over branches.

Goku cleared his throat. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone about this. I really don’t want more sympathy or I’m gonna drown in it.”

“Sure thing.”

“D’you think I’m crazy? I mean, technically she died of unnatural causes.”

“A heart attack is natural,” I said. “Tragic, but natural, especially when you’re older.”

“I think she was scared of something so badly it made her heart stop. It could’ve been a nightmare. I’ve never heard of anyone being scared to death.”

There was no point it arguing with him. He was depressed and looking for answers.

Flying took over a few minutes later and we were back home within a few minutes. Goku returned the Dragon Balls to his room and I got back in bed, thankful that the drama was over. Hopefully he didn’t try it again or I’d have to get my father involved. He always set Goku straight when his emotions go out of control. I lay down and closed my eyes.

The door opened. 

“Bulla? Are you awake?”

I sat up and rubbed my eyes as Goku stepped inside my room, twiddling his thumbs. He shut the door when I motioned for him to and at the foot of my bed. Dad would definitely throw a fit if he knew Goku was in my bedroom in the wee hours of the morning. I turned off the TV and sat there patiently, waiting to see if he was gonna talk. Goku was one big dude, way bigger than dad.

“You didn’t know her well, did you?” Goku asked.

I shook my head. No point in lying.

“She was great.” He smiled a bit. “We always had fun together, even if she was yelling at me. I feel bad, though. Maybe I didn’t pay enough attention to her. Life for humans is so short.”

“Don’t feel too bad about it. Like Shenron said, she’s happy.”

“Yeah, I know. I always thought I’d be able to say goodbye, though.”

We didn’t talk after that. Goku picked up the remote and turned my TV on, flipping through the channels until he found the late night cartoons. The two of us watched silently and grappled with our inner sadness. Goku laughed a little sometimes and wiped tears away from his eyes. I sat against the headboard with my feet stretched out behind him, praying my father didn’t see us. 

Goku got up to leave around four. He started heading for the door but suddenly turned and stared at something on my face. I shifted toward the wall when he walked toward me and my palms started sweating when he knelt down beside my bed. He smiled weakly and reached up to gently wipe the tear-shaped sparkles away from the corner of my eye. My skin tingled where he had touched me. I wanted him to go back to his room.

He did just that, leaving me alone once again.


	5. Five

The smell of pancakes and eggs woke me a few hours later. I groggily sat up and stretched my arms toward the ceiling, basking in the brief moment of ignorance. Last night had been a dream. Chi-Chi was alive and everyone was still happy. My birthday party had gone exactly as planned and I hadn’t caught Goku making a ludicrous wish on the Dragon Balls. He hadn’t been in my bedroom telling me his feelings, either. Everything was as it should be.

Reality had an irritating habit of crushing my happiness.

As I pulled my hair into a loose ponytail everything came back to hit me at once. I had known inside that it all happened but I was doing a damn good job at putting off the emotion behind it. Tears brimmed in my eyes while I wiped off the rest of my makeup in the mirror. Why did someone have to die for all of us to realize how very precious life was? The hollow feeling it my gut brought on the crying.

Someone knocked on the door and let themselves in when they heard me sobbing. Dad muttered something about women and pulled me into his arms, the safest place for me to be. I didn’t even know Chi-Chi but god, it was impossible to be stoic with everyone else breaking down. Another person hugged me from the side and after a few tears dripped on my shirt I realized it was mom. Dad kept on muttering as he widened his arms to encompass both of us against his chest.

We made our way downstairs to the breakfast table, where the entire Son family was already seated. Goku was sitting between his sons with a blank look on his face. He stared at his food without eating. As a matter of fact, no one was really eating. They were playing with the food on their plates, occasionally raising it to their mouth and changing their minds at the last minute. There were no appetites. 

Mom looked around the table at the downtrodden faces. “I’m heading to the mall to shop later on if anyone wants to come along and Vegeta’s going to be training. It might help keep as all occupied instead of sitting around moping. I’m sure Chi-Chi would want us to be happy.”

“I’ll come along,” Videl said, “and Pan wants to look for new clothes.”

“I could go for a few punches to the gut,” Gohan said. 

Trunks and Goten wanted to go along to train as well, which meant I’d be the only one in the house. It wasn’t like I didn’t enjoy having the house to myself but in light of recent events, I would’ve liked to be shopping. The chat helped loosen everyone up and the eating began soon after along with multiple conversations about how Chi-Chi would’ve been so happy to see us together. My eyes traveled to Goku out of vague curiosity and I was surprised to see him staring at me. His gaze moved to the plate of food before him and a small smile touched his lips.

When breakfast was over everyone went to get ready to the day. I started cleaning up the dishes alone until Goku rose from his chair to help me. The stack was brought to the sink so I could wash them off before sticking them in the dishwasher. I drew water into the basin and Goku stood beside me, watching with mild curiosity only a child should have. It was strange that he wasn’t in the mood for training.

“Are you staying here?” I asked.

“I think so. I’m too tired to be throwing punches with everyone else. Aren’t you going shopping with them? If you’re anything like your mother you wouldn’t hesitate.”

“Shopping isn’t that important to me right now. I’d rather stay home and relax for the day. Running around doing stuff doesn’t distract me very well.”

Goku nodded and took the dishes I rinsed to put them in the machine. We were just about done by the time everyone was gathered in the main room again. Mom put a hand on her heart when she saw me shut the dishwasher and start up the cleaning cycle like she was witnessing a miracle. Dad’s cold eyes flickered between Goku and I until he was certain nothing happened.

Videl tapped Pan’s shoulder. “See? Even Bulla is doing the dishes! It’s not that big of a deal.”

“This is a once in a lifetime thing,” mom whispered to her human friend. “Normally Vegeta has to take her phone to make her do much of anything.”

“Ha ha, very funny.” I wiped my hands off on a towel, scowling. “If you all don’t mind, I’m going upstairs to take a much needed nap for the afternoon. Bring me back something pretty or I’ll make these dishes dirty all over again.”

Everyone actually laughed, shaking their heads at my childish antics. I didn’t mind being the butt of the joke for now. If it wiped the sad looks off their faces I was willing to be teased a bit. Dad relaxed his arms a bit when mom patted his bicep and they all left, shutting to the door to leave Goku and me alone. They hadn’t said anything about me staying home with him but Goku wasn’t exactly someone we had to be worried about. He was kind of a gentle giant.

I chucked the towel on the counter and sat on the couch to watch TV. It was time to answer a few texts before people started gossiping. Goku hung around in the kitchen for a few minutes but eventually decided to sit beside me, making sure he kept a foot of space between us for comfort’s sake. I was relieved he didn’t try to touch me or anything like he had to wipe off the glitter. 

We watched TV for a while without saying a word to one another. Thankfully Goku was all cried out and couldn’t even bring himself to sniffle a bit. The wake was the next morning so he’d be going back home to make sure everything was in order for it. I was glad I didn’t have to see Chi-Chi’s dead body resting in a coffin for everyone to view. Open-casket wakes were the creepiest things besides death itself.

“So… how’s school?” Goku asked.

Ugh, more talking. “Fine. Same old, same old. How’s life in the boonies?”

“Simple but sweet. You should try to hang out with Pan a little more. She really looks up to you and it’d be better if she could make some new friends.”

“If she’s out buying new clothes that won’t embarrass me I’d be more than happy to bring her along. She really is a nice kid, just kinda… weird. That’s a pretty common theme in your family tree. Everyone’s well-meaning and a teensy bit dense.”

“True. I’m not that stupid, though.” Goku flung one arm over the back of the couch and rested his feet on the coffee table. “Chi-Chi always used to tell me that I traded my brain for a heart of gold, which is fine with me. I like having a pure mind, body, and conscience.”

“It’s an even trade-off.”

Our conversation lapsed into silence again. The cartoon on the screen flickered around, trying to keep whatever kids were watching it entertained. I kept my eyes glued to it even when I felt Goku watching me. Not having his wife really threw him for a loop. He didn’t know what to do anymore so he was looking to me to give him an order. I tried to ignore the long stares.

“I’m kinda sleepy,” Goku said.

“Then go take a nap.”

“I hate sleeping alone. It’s cold.”

“We have heating pads in the linen closet upstairs,” I said.

“Can you show me?”

With a heavy sigh I got up off the couch to lead Goku upstairs to the only closet we had on the second floor. He waited patiently outside while I dug through a few boxes until I found a pretty big heat pad he could put under a pillow or something while he slept. When I handed it to him, he smiled hugely and thanked me. I gave him a sarcastic thumbs up and headed back toward the stairs.

“Can you sleep with me, Bulla?”

I whirled around to grin at him. Surely he was joking. “Do you want my father to beat you to death? I know you’re depressed but that’s an agonizing way to go.”

“I can sense his energy miles away.” He fingered the heat pad in his hands, looking as earnest and innocent as usual. “You’ve already shown me you’re good at keeping secrets. Please? It’ll help me feel better about not having Chi-Chi last night.”

“Gotta be honest, that’s out of my comfort zone. Sleep and you’ll feel better.”

“But I’m really lonely. Please? There’s no other way for me to relax. I like feeling a warm body next to me. Whenever I hug my pillow I remember waking up and seeing her.”

The dejected expression on Goku’s face was enough to make me give in. It wasn’t being asked in a creepy, rapist manner. Son Goku didn’t have an evil bone in his body. I shrugged in defeat and followed him into the spare bedroom, making sure to leave the door ajar behind me. When I yawned and laid down under the thick quilt he eagerly crawled into bed beside me, grinning from ear to ear. I rolled my eyes and nestled into the plushy sheets.

Goku suddenly pulled me close so I was instead nuzzling into his chest. I thought it would be strange sleeping with him but it felt perfectly fine, the same as when he fell asleep while babysitting Pan and me. His shirt smelled pretty good—the vague scent of pine and burning firewood made me instantly want to go camping. And god, he was warm. My toes curled up tightly against the cold sheets.

The steady thrum of his heart lulled me to sleep. I balanced precariously on the edge, afraid that falling off meant my father would come upstairs and see me in bed with his rival. It wasn’t the bad “in bed,” but dad always got a murderous sort of look when a guy touched me. Goku breathed gently, teasing my tendrils of hair with his warm breath. If he could relax, so could I. What was a nap between friends?

“Goodnight, Bulla,” he murmured.


	6. Six

It was the day of the wake.

My whole family wore varying shades of black (is that even possible?) and dad kept his arms at his sides the entire time. Mom insisted he looked disrespectful when he folded them. Trunks tied his hair back at the base of his neck and we all headed to the funeral parlor around noon, looking positively depressing. We took the car because mom thought flying was too casual.

We arrived at the service and made our way inside to see everyone. The shopping and fighting trips the day before had been successful—not a sad face could be seen when they all returned. Luckily I hadn’t napped for too long with Goku and we woke up in plenty of time to look normal. He kept smirking at me and winked a few times. I honestly felt a bit dirty. It wasn’t a big deal or secret though.

Goku was standing between his sons near the front of the parlor, both big hands clasped in front of him. He looked terribly uncomfortable in his suit. He didn’t shoot me any weird looks, something I was very happy about, but he did hug my mother tightly when she ran forward to embrace him. Gohan and Goten shook hands with us and we made our way to the small plastic chairs to wait for the actual service to begin. I tried not to look at Goku.

It was a pretty small crowd. Gohan went to the podium a few minutes after everyone was seated and Goku sat beside Goten in the front row. I examined my nails when Gohan’s speech about his mother started. A few of them were chipping. They definitely needed to be filed and repainted. I wouldn’t be caught dead with misshapen nails at school.

“We come here today to honor the memory of Chi-Chi, a loving mother, devoted wife, and tenacious fighter,” said Gohan.

Soon I tuned out. I was sick of being sad.

After the wake we all went outside to talk even more, bracing ourselves against the cold wind. I took out my cell phone to tell Shoppa I’d be home around seven if she wanted to hang out and crossed my arms to keep in some body heat. Next we had the actual funeral at the cemetery and it’d all be over with. As I stood gazing at the trees, I felt two big hands settle on my shoulders. I quickly turned to see Trunks standing behind me, eyebrows raised in surprise.

“You’re a little jumpy,” he said. “Something wrong?”

“No. When are we leaving? I wanna get this over with so we can all go home.”

“We’re heading out now. It shouldn’t be much longer.” Trunks reached up to feel my forehead. “Are you sure you’re okay? I didn’t know you cared this much about Chi-Chi.”

I shrugged him off and left to find mom and dad. Everything was fine. I needed some food.

We walked to the cemetery down the street for the funeral. I had my nose so buried in my cell phone I didn’t notice Goku come up alongside me until he coughed. He smiled and I stuck my phone in my back pocket, trying not to look insensitive. We were kind of back away from the crowd. He started rummaging in his pockets as we walked until he pulled out something silver and offered it to me.

“This is for you,” he said.

It was a simple necklace with a heart on the end. I was a big fan of jewelry and pretty much everyone gave it to me for different occasions so I wasn’t suspicious of the gift. He’d been so distracted on my birthday that he probably forgot to give it to me. I smiled and clasped it behind my neck. His face lit up.

“Thanks,” I said. “It’s pretty.”

“I don’t get that kind of stuff but girls like hearts, right? Chi-Chi always asked me to clean the house for her birthday. She didn’t want anything else.”

I adjusted the necklace a bit. “Most women are higher maintenance than that. We like dates and movies and presents and romance. Chi-Chi was unique, I’ll give her that.”

“She sure was. So are those the kinds of things you like?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah. Going for walks is nice, too. Not in the city. Out in the country.”

“We’re walking right now,” Goku said brightly.

“I mean alone, silly. You can bring a picnic blanket and just watch the stars all night.” I shrugged. We were getting close to the cemetery. “Trust me, I’d rather take daddy’s money and go shopping any day but dates are different. They’re more personal than wandering around the mall.”

We parted ways at the funeral and I returned to standing with my family. This time a few people cried, mainly Videl and Pan. Mom blotted a few tears from her eyes and dad stood solemnly behind us as the casket was lowered into the ground. He had to be thinking the same thing I was: mom was even older than Chi-Chi. She could disappear at any minute, too.

A few more words were said before we all turned to leave. Mom and Videl hugged and Pan ran forward to embrace me, which I didn’t argue with. She was trying really hard not to cry. I patted her back while dad and Trunks shook hands with the other men, murmuring apologies. Damn, Chi-Chi was lucky. A lot of people cared about her more than themselves. Goku was back to looking depressed again. I hoped he didn’t try his trick with the Dragon Balls.

When Pan and I broke apart she wiped her eyes and smiled. “I’m going to grandpa’s to look through some of gram’s things if you wanted to come along. We might clean up the house a bit.”

“Sure,” I said. 

It was the polite thing to do, even if it meant canceling my plans. Mom beamed and told me she’d see me later. Pan and I joined hands and Goku put one his hands on my shoulder, nearly knocking me off balance. Everyone waved as we disappeared thanks to instant transmission and reappeared outside Goku’s tiny house. Goku put an arm around Pan and led her inside with me trailing awkwardly behind.

The house must have been too dark for me to see how dirty it was the night before. We stepped over boxes of stuff, Chi-Chi’s stuff that Goku was probably moving to the basement. Pan opted to do the dishes first and rummage through everything later on when it was out of the way downstairs. I managed to pick up one heavy box while Goku easily shouldered five, balancing them precariously. 

We fit everything on the rows of empty shelves. They had a little couch and carpet set up, maybe for guests or just relaxing when it was too hot upstairs during the summer. Pan would be able to spend hours searching through her grandmother’s things. She was still working on the mound of dishes when we came back upstairs so I went over to help her without really thinking about it. I might’ve been spoiled but I wasn’t that much of a snob. I didn’t mind helping if people needed it.

Goku went up to his bedroom, leaving Pan and I alone in the quiet kitchen. The sound of clinking plates with murmured apologies occasionally broke the silence. 

“Grandma was always nagging at me,” Pan said after a while. She slowly cleaned her bowl, watching the water. “She said dad let me be too much of a tomboy and I’d never get married. I used to think it was annoying and kind of mean but… she cared in her own way. It was hard for her to show it.”

“Always is,” I said.

She looked at me then and her eyes traveled to the necklace. “Did grandpa give that to you?”

“Oh, yeah. Earlier today for my birthday, I guess.”

“He’s so adorable sometimes. He usually forgets stuff like that.”

After the dishes were done we made our way to the basement to see what kinds of things Chi-Chi left behind. I took the couch and Pan sat on the floor—there was no way I’d sit on the dirty carpet. It probably hadn’t been cleaned in weeks. I picked through the box Pan handed me and didn’t find anything interesting until a faded diary surfaced. My curiosity was piqued. How bad was it to read a dead old woman’s private thoughts? We read all about Anne Frank’s experiences, right?

I opened the clasp on the worn leather and flipped through the first few pages to get a feel for what she wrote about. It was mostly boring, just her complaining about how Goku was never home. The last entry was written strangely and said something about Goku and little girls, but I brushed it off as Chi-Chi going senile. Of course she was paranoid about her husband cheating. He still looked like a god while she grew closer and closer to the grave.

The night wore on. I stretched and headed upstairs to go to the bathroom while Pan dusted off a picture of Goku and Chi-Chi on their wedding day. As I pushed open the bathroom door, I heard hard breathing from the bedroom across the hall. I tiptoed down the hall to the main bedroom and gently nudged open the door to peer inside, praying Goku wasn’t making a wish again.

It was pretty dark out by then but I could dimly make out the image of Goku vigorously stroking himself. A foreign heat crept through my body and I felt my cheeks flush but my eyes were glued to the scene before me. His back arched and he groaned, biting his lip to keep from making too much noise. I swallowed hard and tried to glance away at the window, feeling a bit… what was it called… voyeuristic? It was really only a vague outline of what he was doing but I didn’t need full lighting to know.

My innocence was broken as I shamelessly watched him. It was more curiosity than anything else. I’d never seen a man doing that and I had a feeling I wouldn’t until I was eighteen. My hands rested on the wall and I stained one eye against the darkness. It’d be bad if Pan came upstairs.

It was suddenly over a few moments later thanks to an onslaught of tears. Goku rolled on his side, weeping and nuzzling his face into the empty sheets beside him. He hugged a pillow and said “I’m sorry” a few times. My heart beat slowed down and I stepped away from the door, hoping I could make a quick getaway before he noticed I was watching. All the crying was making me—

“Hey, Bulla! Is grandpa sleeping?”

Pan was there just after the wrong time, much to my relief. I shook my head quickly and noticed Goku glance up out of my peripheral vision. He was slow but he’d be able to put the pieces together. Pan was holding a picture frame in her hands but the actual photo was hidden. She waited until Goku climbed out of bed and stepped into the hallway to show us what her discovery was.

I didn’t know if it was my slightly accentuated senses but I could definitely tell Goku had been “working out” too hard. His shirt was damp with sweat. He leaned against the door frame and gave me a sideways glance as his granddaughter flipped the frame to show us the picture.

“It’s you two!” Pan said.

Sure enough, it was Goku holding me when I was probably five. We were on the beach with everyone, hanging out by the ocean. Goku thanked Pan and took the picture and she smiled before skipping off back to the basement. When the door shut I rubbed my arms and started to walk away.

“Did you… see me?” Goku asked.

“Yeah and I’d prefer to just act like it didn’t happen.”

“It’s natural. Men and women do it all the time.”

“Great,” I said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“You can try it. It feels nice. Chi-Chi showed me a long time ago and I always do it when I’m sad.” He took a step closer and knelt it front of me. We were eye-level now. “I can show you if you’re confused. You’ve already shown me you’re good at keeping secrets.”

I touched my necklace. “I’m okay, really. Pan and I are gonna sleep in the basement so don’t worry if we don’t come upstairs again. I’m really fine so if we can just never talk about this again I’ll be happy.”

“It’s always better when you don’t talk,” Goku said.

His words affected me in a way I couldn’t even understand. I nodded and hurried back down the stairs to spend the night chatting with Pan. Boys were weird.


	7. Seven

Over the next few weeks I became pretty close friends with Pan. I wasn’t expecting it to happen. Mostly I hung around her because mom expected me to and dad shot me dirty looks if I refused. But she was a genuinely nice girl and came out of her shell with some prodding. Soon she was coming with Shoppa and me to the mall when Valese stayed home to comfort Goten. We bought her new clothes to help her fit in when she finally started attending Orange Star High.

My car was small and blue, exactly what I wanted. Mom and dad wanted me home by nine every night and threatened to take the keys if I wasn’t at least on the doorstep by 8:59. Chi-Chi’s death had really shaken everyone’s foundations. Nothing was safe anymore. Normally I would’ve thrown a fit and put harsher demands on them in exchange but I quietly obeyed instead.

Goku started disappearing for long periods of time and wouldn’t talk to anyone for days. I’d drop by the house with Pan to make sure everything was in order. There was an occasional dish but he wasn’t home enough to really mess the place up. It was a relief for me to not have to keep looking over my shoulder, wondering if he was gonna try anything else. I considered telling my parents what I had seen in his bedroom; it just seemed too weird to say out loud. ‘Hey mom, I caught your best friend from childhood jerking off the night of his wife’s funeral. No biggie, right?’

I managed to put it all behind me. There were more important things to worry about.

One night I was sitting in my bedroom with Pan, flipping through a magazine I got during our outing to the mall. Winter was fast approaching and I needed new sweaters: stat. She was lying on the floor like she usually did with her eyes glued to the TV. I heard her sigh and shut it off before climbing up on the foot of my bed. I peered over the top of my magazine and unwillingly set it aside. The look she was giving me said it all. She needed to talk about something important.

Pan’s eyes moved to my necklace. I hadn’t taken it off much since the day Goku gave it to me. A lot of people complimented it and of course I loved hearing about how pretty I was. Mom was shocked that he gave me jewelry and dad kind of glared at it.

“You know grandpa pretty well, right?” Pan asked.

I shrugged. “I guess so. He hasn’t been around a lot lately.”

“Well I go over to his house sometimes later on at night by myself to straighten up anything we might’ve missed. It’s no big deal since I can fly and my parents don’t mind. Anyway, I was there the other night and… I was debating even mentioning it to you, but… he has a picture of you next to his bed. It’s kinda recent, too. And a little sticky. I don’t even know where he got a camera.”

“He… what?”

“Grandpa means well, he really does. He just doesn’t understand things socially sometimes. It looks like a school picture he got from your parents.” Pan started biting her nails nervously. “I just didn’t know why he had a picture of you there. There’s not really anything else in his room.”

“If you’re asking me whether or not I’m hooking up with Goku, I’m definitely not. He’s like a million years old and definitely not my type. Can’t say I’m really happy about him having my picture. Did you notice anything else weird or was that it?”

“No, he doesn’t really want me in his bedroom so I only went in the one time. It was totally empty otherwise. Just the picture, tissues, and some wood carvings. They’re shaped like animals. He makes them for my birthday. I’m getting kind of old for it now, but…”

“Ugh,” I said, “that’s so creepy. Him having my picture, I mean. You have a strange family, Pan.”

“Tell me about it. My grandpa acts like a ten year old and we’re all descended from aliens. You’re a half-Saiyan, though. You have it way worse.”

It wasn’t too bad being a halfling. Dad said I got a few of the perks and none of the negatives, like a tail or turning into a raging gorilla under full moons. I could fly, I was strong, and I was ruthless. Only Gohan and Goten understood what being a half breed was really like. Pan only had a quarter of Goku’s Saiyan blood left in her so she was weaker compared to the rest of us.

Pan left a little while later and I turned the TV on for some background noise while I leafed through my magazine again. I needed a serious boyfriend. Most of my school years consisted of dancing between boys and it was time I settled down with one. I bit the inside of my lip, thinking of who was the best long-term material in school. It had to be someone older or I’d look like a dweeb. 

As I browsed through the articles I suddenly felt a light pressure at the foot of my bed. Curious, I glanced up and let the blood drain out of my face.

Goku was sitting there with a huge grin on his face. He placed a finger to his lips and turned to take something out of his pocket. I gawked at him. What the heck was he thinking? My father would be able to pick up his scent a mile away. He’d be up in my bedroom to pummel Goku in three seconds.

“I made this for you,” Goku said, opening his big palm in front of me.

My heart was beating so hard I could hear it in my ears. I looked down to see a crudely carved rabbit in Goku’s hand, complete with buttons for eyes and a fluffy tail made out of cotton. His smile widened when I took it and I thanked him before setting it on my nightstand. Yep, he was losing his mind. He definitely had a death wish.

I swallowed. Hard. “It’s almost midnight. What do you want?”

“Want? Me? Oh, nothing. I just came over to give that to you. I’m making another one but it’s a surprise. I haven’t been home lately so I keep missing you when you’re cleaning with Pan. It’s nice having people walking around the house. Do you want to come over tonight?”

“I… wait, what?”

“It’s hard for me to sleep alone. You’re almost as warm as me so you keep the cold away.” He was staring at his fingers and a slight blush crept into his cheeks. “We could talk about what you saw me doing the other night and maybe I could show you how it feels. I mean, I’m an adult so it’s better for me to do it than some random boy, right?”

“I told you I didn’t want to talk about that. It was embarrassing enough seeing it.”

“Why? It’s normal. Even your parents do it. It’s how they made you.” He scratched his head awkwardly. “I don’t really get how it works but it does.”

“Get back to me on that one,” I said. 

The Saiyan looked around furtively and crawled into bed beside me, leaning against the headboard and gently pressing our legs together. His training pants felt weird on my bare legs. They were pretty soft. I buried my nose in the magazine and he fingered my t-shirt. Dad was probably already on the stairs, getting ready to burst into the room and break Goku’s neck.

“This is a nice shirt,” Goku said. “Where’d you get it?”

“Some store in the mall. Your granddaughter has one just like it.”

“I’ll have to talk to her about it. She’s been at the house a lot. Your mother won’t mind if you stay with me for a few days. Pan can sleep in Gohan’s old room and you can sleep with me. I’d really appreciate the company and—”

“No,” I said. “I have school to worry about. I’m sorry about Chi-Chi but the world doesn’t revolve around you.”

There was silence for a while after that. I tried focusing on my magazine while Goku kept playing with the edge of my t-shirt. My experience with boys was limited so I had no clue what he was trying to do. Did he want me to take off my shirt? Was he interested in sex? Occasionally his rough fingers would brush my skin and he’d shiver. I glared at the pictures when he reached a hand down his pants.

Goku groaned quietly and his fingers crept down my pants toward the insufferable heat between my legs. I swatted his hand with the magazine and he paused, deciding to squeeze my thigh instead. The way his digits moved beneath the thin fabric of my pajamas was mesmerizing: it was like watching an octopus writhing around. His hands were hot and calloused. I sat perfectly still. Dare I move?

He chuckled. “Oh, Bulla, you’re such a good girl.”

Numb, I crossed my legs to keep his hands from exploring too far again. Goku made a growling sound and tightened his grip on my leg considerably hard, making me hiss in pain. It grew even more painful and he suddenly arched upwards with a particularly loud grunt. I still didn’t move. 

His chest rose and fell in violent motions as he tried to catch his breath and a cold reality crept in on my heart. Whatever Goku was doing wasn’t something I should be seeing. I knew what it was but… I didn’t at the same time. He withdrew his hand from his pants and laughed. There was something glistening on his fingers. It webbed between them when he wriggled them around.

“I’ll give you something nice if you lick this,” Goku said.

I found my voice. “No thanks. It doesn’t look like it tastes very good.”

Promises of more jewelry and clothes followed. I was a bit dizzy from what I had just partially witnessed so I agreed to do it. Goku propped himself up on his elbow and offered me his hand that was covered in the foreign stuff. I grimaced and closed my eyes to lick the tip of his ring finger. He grinned when I gagged and quickly wiped my mouth, trying to get rid of the foul taste. It was way too salty.

“That was a good start,” he said, wiping everything else off on his pants. “It takes a lot of getting used to. I told you I can show you nice things.”

Honestly, I felt dirty enough that only molten lava could clean me off. Curiosity and morality were at war within me. I shrugged, stunned into submission by Goku’s behavior. His black eyes suddenly flickered to the door and he put two fingers to his forehead, vanishing in an instant.

Dad was in the doorway a second later. He was scowling so deeply I thought it would permanently scar his face. He stepped in my room and I pulled a pillow over the spot where Goku had been sitting. A bit of the strange liquid had dripped on my sheets. I’d have to bring them to the dry cleaners before mom noticed. She felt bad for Goku but not that bad.

Dad’s nose scrunched up. “Clean your room, Bulla. It reeks in here.”

When he shut the door I let out a sigh of relief. Thankfully his senses weren’t what they used to be.


	8. Eight

Painful throbbing in my thigh woke me the next morning.

I groggily came into awareness and threw my sheets off to pull myself into a sitting position. When I rolled up my pants, a purple hand-shaped bruise was glaring back at me. Memories of what Goku had been doing the night before came back and I quickly pushed my pants leg back down. I didn’t even want to think about it. I would go to school like every other day and act like it never happened.

There was a bad taste in my mouth. I climbed out of bed and noticed a black box sitting beside the bunny on my nightstand. Curious, I flipped open the lid to see what was inside. Goku had promised me a present because I tried to lick whatever the weird stuff was on his fingers.

Inside the box was a pretty silver ring. My tiredness was suddenly gone. I slid it on my middle finger, which was the only one it could fit on, and admired the way the light hit it. If he was gonna give me jewelry whenever I agreed to do what he wanted then I might have to have him over more often.

I frowned and shook my head. No, what the heck was I thinking? What Goku did was wrong; I could feel it in the bottom of my gut. If and when I saw him again I needed to tell him he couldn’t see me anymore. My father would find out soon enough and we’d both be in trouble. I started to take off the ring and stopped, twisting it on my finger. Keeping it wasn’t that big of a deal, right?

Shoppa texted me to ask if I was going to school. I considered skipping.

Being at Orange Star High reminded me that everything was pretty much back to normal. I caught up with Shoppa in the halls and she told me about a guy was liked—his name was Gunner or something. We did what we always did and texted throughout the day about random things. Pan still didn’t have a cell phone so it was a bit harder getting in contact with her.

All day I had to grin and bear the throbbing in my thigh. When I finally got home after school, I hurried up to my bedroom and put on loose-fitting pants that wouldn’t press against the bruise. It was really ugly. Thankfully it was winter and no one expected to see me in shorts. I crawled in bed to watch TV for the rest of the day instead of torturing my leg walking around the mall.

Around four Pan showed up in my bedroom. She looked surprised at how I was lounging around instead of spending the afternoon shopping, but didn’t ask questions. My leg was getting stiff from being ramrod straight for so long. I couldn’t move it or I risked more pain.

“My parents are bringing me to the lake to go fishing,” Pan said. “Your mom and Vegeta are gonna go, too. Are you okay? You look kinda sick.”

“I’m fine,” I said quickly. “My leg keeps cramping so I think I’ll stay home and watch TV for the day. Thanks for asking, though. We can go to the mall Friday if you want.”

Pan beamed and left my room. I sighed with relief and settled down in my blankets. If everyone was busy at the lake that meant I could have the whole house to myself. I loved when that happened. Dad was almost always home, especially since Goku had lost his will to spar. Content, I closed my eyes and listened to the sound of the TV.

The doorbell rang some time later. My eyes opened and I blinked blearily; I had fallen asleep for nearly an hour. I stumbled out of bed, biting my lip when hot pain lanced down my leg and hobbled toward the stairs. The entire trip took me a few minutes but I arrived soon enough and peered through the eyehole.

There was mess of black hair sticking up in all different directions.

My heart beat faster as I pulled open the door to reveal Goku standing on the step with his hands stuffed in his pockets. He wasn’t wearing his training outfit like usual, just jeans and a t-shirt. The muscles in his arms looked even bigger without long sleeves. He smiled. His shoulders were hunched a little. He never stood up straight anymore.

“Hi,” he said. 

“Hi. Everyone’s down at the lake if you wanna go. They’re fishing.”

“I already did that today. Do you want to go for a walk?”

My leg stung in response. “Can’t. My legs are cramping up for some reason. I’m just lying in bed.”

“Did something happen?” Goku frowned and took a step toward me. His face darkened. “Did someone at your school hurt you? You can tell me. I’ll make sure they pay for it. Do you want me to massage it? Chi-Chi used to do that for me when I was training too hard and it really helps.”

“Um… no, I’m all set. Thanks for coming down.”

“Show it to me.”

Despite my disagreement Goku pushed his way in my house and waited patiently for me to show him my thigh. Normally I didn’t care about that sort of thing with him but it had suddenly taken on a new dimension. There was a weird tension between us. I sat on one of the kitchen chairs and carefully rolled up the leg of my pants until the hideous bruise was exposed.

Goku stared at it dumbly for a few seconds before softly placing his hand over the mark. It was a perfect match. Too perfect.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s fine. You weren’t really thinking.”

“That always happens when I’m playing with girls.”

“What?” I asked, feeling a cold tingle down my spine.

“Oh, I keep forgetting you’ve never played with any boys. We kind of have but it doesn’t really count.” Goku put his hands back in his pockets like he was worried he’d do something bad with them if they were hanging at his sides. “It’s how you make babies like Gohan and Goten.”

“You mean sex, right?” 

“Yes but I don’t like that word. It’s… dirty.”

Now he refused to look at me. A walk was definitely in order. 

We left the city and headed toward the forest, where a well-walked path cut through to Mt. Paozu. Goku watched me wincing in pain as we wandered and hoisted me up on his back, ignoring my protests. He wrapped my legs around his waist and my arms fit comfortably about his neck. I rested my head on his back, hoping he couldn’t feel my pulse quicken. Who was I kidding? He could probably smell it.

It was pretty comfortable on his back but I wanted answers. What did he mean by “girls?” Were they the “little girls” Chi-Chi talked about in her diary? Goku carried me effortlessly over the landscape and I started drifting off to sleep. Maybe my questions could wait.

“I miss her,” he said.

“I figured.”

We lapsed into silence again. I was strongly considering taking a nap on Goku’s back and seeing where the day brought us. The sun was starting to set so my parents would wonder where I was. They’d be worried that I left my phone sitting in my room. It wasn’t like me to be away from technology.

Night fell when we finally stopped in a small meadow. Goku knelt down to let me off his back and watched me sit in front of him with my legs crossed. His black eyes were sparkling. The moon illuminated his hair, making it seem to glow. I smiled at him and folded my knees together. It was weird how death was bringing me close to someone I had barely known before.

I laughed. His shoulders squared off and he leaned closer. His pupils were wide.

“What?” he asked. “Is something funny?”

“Just that we’re sitting in some field when it’s totally dark out.”

He cocked his head. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the dark. Nothing in this entire universe is as strong as I am. Even your father.”

“Dad’s never gonna give up on that dream.” I shivered in the cold and gazed up at the sky. The stars were bright and the moon was nearly full. “It’s nice out here. The city gets so crowded and loud. No wonder Gohan and Goten are so laid back. They never dealt with busy city life.”

“Yep, Mt. Paozu has that effect on people. It gets chilly, though. I used to cuddle up next to Chi-Chi every night and she’d touch my hair and hum songs. I miss her.”

“I know you do. You were a good husband and she’s probably telling all the spirits in Otherworld how great you are. You’ve always had such a way with kids, too.”

The light left Goku’s eyes. He smiled wider but it was somehow creepy. He reached forward to tug on the edge of my pajama pants and kept on grinning, no longer looking me in the eyes. The personality shift was intense and sudden. I no longer felt safe. He kept on rubbing the fabric between his fingers.

“You should sleep at my house,” he said. It wasn’t a request.

“Come on now, you know I have school tomorrow. As a matter of fact I should be getting home.”

“Pan can come over, too. We can all sleep in my bed together.” His face lit up again as a fond memory passed through his mind. “I remember when she came in the room while Chi-Chi and I were trying to sleep. She’d jump between us and tell me I was hot like a volcano.”

Again his personality shifted. I rubbed the back of my neck. He was losing his mind.

I leaned back on my palms to get a better view on the sky and Goku watched. The Big Dipper was almost directly in the center of the trees. It would’ve been nice to get a picture but I left my phone at home. I tried to connect different constellations as Goku crept forward to sit beside me. A warm hand closed over mine and I saw him smiling out of my peripheral vision. 

“You’re kind of weird,” I said.

Goku shrugged. “Oh well. If I’m gonna live forever I might as well make it interesting. Chi-Chi always asked me to make her immortal with the Dragon Balls. I didn’t want to burden her with it, though. And I could never picture her dying in my head. I thought she would always be by my side.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being alone.”

“I hate being alone. I like when you and Pan come over.”

“Yeah, I know.” I squinted at the sky and saw a flash of light fly across it, quickly vanishing over the horizon. “Was that a comet? Aren’t we supposed to make a wish now?”

“Want me to fly into space and make it go back across the other way?”

When I laughed again he moved an inch closer. I needed to stop laughing. Was I encouraging him?

“Have you told anyone about me?” Goku asked.

“No. I already told you my father will kill you. He came in my bedroom like two seconds after you left last night and said it smelled bad.”

“Poor Vegeta. He’s so protective but so… weak. I’m glad you’re being a good girl. I’ll keep bringing you presents like the ring if you don’t tell anyone. I knew you’d like it.”

“Dad’s not weak,” I said, pulling my hand away from Goku’s to cross my arms over my chest. “You’re just outrageously strong. Plus, mom made him stay home to help raise Trunks and me. Chi-Chi let you fly around and do whatever you wanted. My father chose what was important to him and you chose what was important to you.”

No response. Goku just stared up at the sky for a while before asking if I was ready to go. My leg wouldn’t cooperate so he scooped me up in his arms and carried me from the front rather than giving me a piggyback ride. My ear was right over his heartbeat. He used instant transmission and we were in his bedroom, engulfed in darkness. He tugged back the sheets and gently laid me underneath them. I was getting too tired to care about where I slept. My leg hurt.

Goku knelt beside the bed and touched my face. “Sleep, Bulla. I’ll be back in a little while.”

“It’s only like seven o’ clock.” I yawned, defeating my own argument.

“You’re gonna have a big day tomorrow. Your parents are going to be worried. But I’ll bring you back to them. This time.”

“I need to go home before dad has a heart attack.”

“Shh,” Goku whispered, tucking the sheets closer to my chin, “don’t get all riled up. I’ve had a lot of time to think and I came up with a great idea for you to stay over every night. All it requires is a bit of cooperation from you and some good acting skills.”

“I don’t want to stay over every night, Goku. Get a grip and bring me home.”

“Don’t you want to get more presents? We don’t have to play or anything tonight. I’m just happy to have someone to sleep with.”

Defeated, I closed my eyes. More jewelry sounded nice and I was technically helping Goku out. Mom couldn’t be too mad at me. Goku climbed into bed beside me and put one big arm over my waist, pulling me flush against him. His fingers tugged on my t-shirt. I knew it was wrong but I didn’t want it to stop.


	9. Nine

For the first time in a long time, I didn’t go to school in the morning. I wasn’t complaining or anything. It was nice to sleep until eleven in the afternoon. But as I woke up and rubbed the sleepiness from my eyes, I wondered what my parents were thinking. Had Goku let them know I decided to sleep at his house? That wouldn’t go over well with either of them, especially dad.

There was no body beside mine when I sat up. Luckily the pain in my leg was totally gone and further inspection showed that the bruise had started turning green already. Being half Saiyan had its perks. I stretched my arms toward the ceiling and listened intently for any signs of Goku. He didn’t seem to be home. Maybe he’d gone out to spar with dad. Chi-Chi also complained that he fished too much.

I climbed out of bed and made my way to their bathroom to wash up. There wasn’t much shampoo left but it was enough to get my hair clean. When I was done, I rummaged in their medicine cabinet for an extra toothbrush. There were none to be found so I ended up scrubbing my teeth with my index finger and some toothpaste. It wasn’t exactly my style but I felt gross enough to resort to it.

Downstairs was just as eerily silent. I grabbed some chips out of the pantry and sat on the couch to munch on them, tracing cracks in the wall to keep myself occupied. Deep down I knew I should’ve left. I could’ve gone home and told my parents what happened. It would’ve been over. Shoulda, coulda, woulda. Of course I waited with mild excitement for Goku to come home. Leaving might spoil his plan and I really wanted more presents.

The door opened as I was scooping out the last pieces of chips. Goku was frowning until he noticed me sitting on the couch, sucking the salt off my fingers. There was a white box in his hand. He offered it to me and I suddenly felt much better about deciding to stick around. My parents were getting stingier as I got older so it was nice to get presents. He sat across from me on the recliner to watch me open the box.

Inside was a pretty half-dress sort of thing. It was all black and mostly see-through in the middle, which would definitely show off my stomach and underwear. The top was a thick black bra. There was a pink bow where my cleavage would meet. When I looked up at Goku questioningly, he smiled. 

“It’s for bed,” he said. “Your parents think you ran away from home. Everyone’s out looking for you. I’ll let you leave tomorrow but I want one more night. Then everyone will know you’re safe.”

“You told my family I ran away?” I gawked incredulously at him. “Why? Mom has enough on her plate right now. I need to go home and tell them everything’s okay. Dad can probably sense my energy anyway. You’re just hurting more people, Goku.”

“Well no, they just assumed it. If I told them they might suspect me. It’s only for tonight and then I’ll let you leave tomorrow morning. My energy overshadows yours too much: you’re impossible to pinpoint. You told me you don’t mind keeping secrets.”

“Little things are okay, like you making crazy wishes and showing up in my bedroom in the middle of the night.” I rose to my feet, fully intending on heading home to tell my parents. “This isn’t a tiny secret anymore. You’re acting like a kid and I’m telling everyone as soon as possible.”

Goku stood with a panicked look on his face. “Please don’t, Bulla. I’m trying to be nice, I really am! What am I doing wrong? Did I get you the wrong thing? I really like having you here and I want you to stay for a while, that’s all. Your parents just assumed you ran away or were kidnapped or… you know, they just think you’re gone. I’m going to bring you back tomorrow, I promise. Do you want something else?”

The fear in his eyes wasn’t contrived. He was terrified to the core of being alone. I stared at him for a few moments and sat back down, trying to figure out what I was going to do. Would anyone even believe me if I told them the truth? Goku was always gentle. Kidnapping wasn’t his M.O. It’d be even harder telling my parents what he had been doing in my bedroom. 

Soon Goku relaxed and went upstairs, confident enough to leave me by myself. The birds twittering outside just made me feel even more trapped. I needed to go home. I needed to tell everyone what was going on before it was too late. But was it that bad? I was sixteen now, only two years away from being an adult. I glanced at the stairs when I heard the shower start. No, it was still wrong.

Getting outside was easy enough. Dad had never taught me how to control my power level so I hoped he could sense it the further I got from Goku. I didn’t risk flying. It would draw everyone in the area to me, including the mildly crazy guy. I stuck to the main roads and hiked it home, narrowly avoiding encounters with different wild animals. The entire trek took me a couple hours and I was beyond elated when I finally saw Capsule Corp.

My parents were sitting in the kitchen, staring at the tabletop. Both of them looked at the door the second I stepped inside and dad was off his chair in an instant. Before I could blink he had his big arms wrapped around me. Were we… hugging? Mom was too tired to cry. She joined in on the group hug and they only let go when I promised I wasn’t running off again.

“You look terrible,” mom said. “Why did you run away? Where have you been? Everyone’s worried sick! Your father and Goku flew around all morning looking. Is something wrong, Bulla?”

“I couldn’t sense your energy.” Dad folded his arms, glaring at me. “Why is that?”

The image of Goku crying as he desperately tried to wish his wife back flashed before my eyes. I thought about watching him in his bedroom and licking weird things off his fingers. The expectant stares from my parents were not forgiving. They would string him up. Did he deserve it? Even I didn’t think he really knew what he was doing. He always had Chi-Chi to bring him back to reality. 

“I don’t know what came over me,” I said. “Chi-Chi’s death is making me worried. I don’t want to lose anyone else. I thought if I left I’d never have the deal with the pain of losing someone. Not knowing is better than having to face the truth, right?” Tears welled up in my eyes. They were real, but for a different reason. “I’m so sorry I scared both of you. I just don’t want to see any more death.”

Mom and dad exchanged a glance. All was forgiven.

We talked for a while before they let me go to my room but my curfew was tightened a bit in the end. I collapsed on my bed and sighed heavily. Why was I defending Goku again? Did I really feel bad for him or was my morbid curiosity getting the better of me? Maybe I just liked the gifts. 

Pan came over later on. She was just as relieved to see me home as everyone else was. Seeing her so happy to see me made my stomach turn. I was doing bad things with her grandfather. If she knew the truth she would hate me. We relaxed in my room for the day and played video games. I never got out anymore. I was turning into an antisocial hermit.

I demanded that Pan stay for the night. She was the only thing keeping Goku away.


	10. Ten

When I was getting ready for school in the morning Pan came running into the bathroom. To my surprise, she was wearing regular clothes like she was ready to go out. When I looked at her curiously she had to catch her breath before she could speak. Her eyes were shining with excitement. I looked away quickly at my reflection in the mirror. Why did everyone in the Son family look alike?

“Mom and dad said I can shadow you at school!” she said. “Isn’t that great? They spoke with the principal a week ago and decided it’s time for me to go. Today is just so I can learn the ropes but after that I should be a full time student like you!”

“That’s awesome, Pan! Just don’t, you know… do anything weird.”

My new friend nodded so fast I thought her head would fly off. She skipped off down the hallway to wait for me to finish getting ready. I couldn’t help but smile as I pulled my hair into a ponytail. Pan coming to school with me meant two things. One, I could finally help her emerge from her cocoon and become normal like the rest of us. Two, her creepy grandfather would stay the heck away from me.

Mom was making breakfast for us downstairs. She put two pancakes on a plate for Pan and watched her wolf them down without even sitting. I rolled my eyes and put some scrambled eggs on my plate, eating them at my leisure while Pan fidgeted nervously. Dad was studying the paper too intently to care about what we were doing. He sipped his coffee and picked at his food.

“Relax,” I said. “If you keep jumping around people are gonna talk. I told you not to act weird.”

“She’s just excited.” Mom sat next to dad and nudged his elbow. “Remember when Bulla was born? You were pretty excited to have a princess to carry on your legacy.”

Dad scowled and hid his face in the newspaper.

Pan and I left for school a few minutes later and she managed to get a hold of herself. Hopefully everyone understood she was a bit different. At least she meant well. Her parents had raised her in a simple home with simple rules. My face soured. Who was I to be talking about simple? I didn’t even know a thing about boys or even my own body. Yeah, I knew the basics. But they only told you the boring stuff in health class, which I routinely skipped. What the heck was the stuff on his hands?

Even after we parked I kept thinking about everything I had been doing with Goku. Shoppa had already had sex so she would know about those kinds of things. But how did I ask her without suggesting I was actually doing it? I went through the motions as I led Pan into school, waving to people who called my name and stopping when they wanted to meet Pan. My only other option was to ask Goku himself but that would be even worse than asking Shoppa.

School dragged more than usual. I was completely uninvolved and Pan was mostly left to fend for herself. She was already blooming into a social butterfly, though. A lot of kids stared at me in the halls. They’d probably heard about me “running away.” Little did they know…

After school I drove home with Pan, trying to show interest in her first day. Her excitement was blinding her. I was occasionally nodding; very clearly not paying attention and she didn’t seem to care. My mind was elsewhere. Goku had to be mad I left the other day. But I hadn’t told my parents what really happened so maybe he was waiting to approach me again at night.

I parked and followed Pan in the house. We were gonna work on our homework together. She hadn’t started trigonometry yet so I was giving her a hand. When we walked inside I immediately turned to take off my shoes and heard her squeal in excitement. There was a familiar laugh.

“Grandpa, school is awesome!” Pan said.

I winced. Yup, it was him.

The whole crowd was sitting at the table. Videl and Gohan were smiling at their daughter as she climbed into Goku’s lap to tell him about her first day of school. My mother was leaning against the kitchen sink and dad was nowhere to be seen. I averted my eyes from Goku and stiffly sat at the other end of the table, immediately taking out my cell phone to text Shoppa. 

“Bulla introduced me to all the really cool kids,” Pan continued, smiling at me. “They all liked my clothes and wanted my phone number. Daddy, can I get a phone? Everyone has one besides me.”

“Sure thing, honey,” Gohan said when Videl elbowed him in the ribs.

“Tonight I’m bringing you and Bulla out for a walk.” Goku glanced at my mother and back to his granddaughter, grinning. “All the adults are having a night together but we’d rather go outside and explore, right? I know I don’t want to be in the stuffy house.”

My pulse quickened. No. He’d find a way to ditch Pan and we’d be alone again. My fingers trembled as I checked my social networking accounts. What did he want? Was he mad at me? Would he break my neck and throw my corpse in the lake? I was terrified. I regretted lying to my parents about my disappearance. If they really knew what happened, we wouldn’t be sitting around the table chatting.

“I’m staying here,” I said. “It’s been a long day—”

“You can sleep at Goku’s for the night,” my mother interrupted. “We really do have some important things to go over so you kids need to be out of the house. Goku has graciously accepted his role as the babysitter. Just bear with us. It’s only for tonight.”

“What’s going on?” I asked. 

“Yeah, I’m kinda curious.” Pan hopped off Goku’s lap and sat next to me.

Mom rubbed the back of her neck. She was hiding something. “It’s nothing, just an adult night. You’ll have a ton of fun with Goku so don’t sweat it, guys.”

“What are you celebrating? Me vanishing the other night? Or is it Chi-Chi’s death?” I drilled my eyes into mom’s, trying to extract the truth.

They weren’t interested in talking. Goku rounded Pan and I up and used instant transmission to get us out of the house. I tore my arm out of his grasp when we were standing in a field and covered my chest. Why were they throwing us out? I had just “run away” not two days ago and they wanted me out of the house? There was something fishy going on at the Briefs household.

We walked through the woods for a while, not really going anywhere in particular. I hung back a bit from the two of them and patiently waited for the moment I could escape. Goku was trying very hard to ignore me. He wanted to talk to me. He wanted to know why I left. I picked a flower and pulled off the petals as our stroll continued. I was about to leave him yet again. He wouldn’t be happy.

The second my power level flared for flight Goku whirled around and gave me a serious glare. We stared at each other for a few seconds while Pan furrowed her brow in confusion. He raised his eyebrows. I scowled and conceded, dropping my energy back down to normal. Goku turned back to his granddaughter and took her small hand in his. She glanced between us, able to sense my sudden ki change. I just wanted to go home.

“Pan, I need you to go back to my house,” Goku said. “Bulla and I will be along in a little while.”

Pan looked up at me. “Are you sure, grandpa? I don’t mind staying.”

“You should stay,” I said.

“Go home,” Goku said, grabbing her cheeks to make her look at him. 

She hesitated, but flew off into the air without a second glance in my direction. I angrily folded my arms and Goku rose to his feet, cracking his neck. He put his hands in his pockets and smiled at me as the wind gently swayed his hair. It was still light out. We had about three hours before the cold night.

“Let’s walk,” he said.

“No.”

“Bulla, you really hurt my feelings the other night. I was hoping we could be in bed together all day and night.” Goku frowned. “Don’t you like me?”

“No, I do not ‘like’ you. You’re ancient compared to me.”

“I brought you presents and everything. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, Goku, giving me gifts will make me fall madly in love with you. Forget how old you are or my own age. I’m not being your rebound because your wife died. That’s disgusting.”

“Don’t talk about Chi-Chi like that,” he said, clenching his fists.

“Why the heck not? She’s dead and nothing you do will bring her back. You can’t pretend that I’m her and you can’t wish for her to be here. You will never, ever have your wife back. Get over it and be happy with what you do have—two sons and a granddaughter. Did you even know Goten is considering proposing to Valese? Or were you gonna skip the wedding to go fishing?”

To my surprise, Goku had nothing to say. He glared at the ground for a minute then grabbed my arm and placed his fingertips to his forehead. Despite my protests he disappeared and brought me to a dark attic. I started to scream but he wasn’t having it. He covered my mouth with his hand and pushed me to my knees so I was staring through a hole in the floorboards. After my heart stopped pounding I realized where I was. Home? But he finally got me alone.

Goku put a finger to his lips and nodded toward the hole in the floor. We could see everyone sitting at the table beneath us, including Goten and Valese. He sat beside me; clearly he already knew what they were going to talk about. I strained my ears to hear the discussion.

“We’ve all been thinking it,” mom said. “Something wasn’t right about Chi-Chi’s death.”

“Perhaps Kakarot strangled her so she wasn’t in his way,” dad sneered.

“Dad isn’t like that.” Goten was sitting away from everyone else with his arm around Valese. He directed a cold glare toward my father. “Not everyone is evil to the core, Vegeta.”

Gohan ran a hand through his hair. “Goten, please. Even you have to acknowledge something was off about the way mom died. I know you like to picture them as totally happy but they weren’t. You know dad drove her insane most days. I can’t say I blame her. He’s been getting worse recently and now that she’s gone I’m constantly worrying about him. He needs a babysitter.”

“No one has time for that,” Vegeta said. “Perhaps Kakarot should come to terms with reality and stop pursuing my daughter.”

Goku gently began rubbing my back. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Did they all know? Was this it? Would it be the end of everything?

“Would you stop saying that?” mom snapped. “Goku doesn’t like Bulla. He’s three times her age and three times dumber. I honestly can’t believe you’d even think she’d be stupid enough to become involved with him. I’ve never trusted your “Saiyan instinct” and I never will.”

“Dad’s harmless,” Gohan said. “He knows who is and isn’t off limits. Bulma knows how he can be: curious, sometimes a little too much. Bulla has a good head on her shoulders.”

“Can we get back to the topic at hand?” Goten asked. “I think you were accusing our father of murdering mom because she was constantly bugging him. He wouldn’t even destroy Frieza after everything he did to all of our friends! This is ridiculous! No amount of blaming or arguing is gonna bring mom back so can we all stop and let the dead rest in peace?”

“It’s important, Goten,” said Videl. “We want to make sure there was no foul play.”

Goten stood up abruptly and grabbed Valese’s hand to lead her out of the kitchen. The front door slammed shut and everyone was silent for a few moments. Goku started playing with my hair. I stared at my mother, expecting her to defend her best friend from childhood. They all thought he was a murderer. Over what? Chi-Chi being an incessant nag?

It made me kind of angry. I considered jumping down and telling them all off. Goku was a good man at his core; he just never really grew up. He wasn’t technically hurting me and I found it very hard to believe he was capable of killing his wife in cold blood. My hands tightened around the edge of the hole in the ceiling and Goku ran his fingers through my hair to soothe me.

“It’s always the same old shit with dad,” Gohan said, angry for the first time since I’d known him. “Why can’t he just stay home and be an attentive husband? Why did he have to constantly leave mom alone? Piccolo practically raised me and dad was too busy playing with pterodactyl eggs to go to his funeral. If it wasn’t for me being a nag he wouldn’t have even gone to mom’s funeral.”

“Relax,” Videl murmured. “Your father still has the mind of a child and he always will. He doesn’t like dealing with serious things and change upsets him. I think its best that we all let the chips fall where they may. Keep your eyes open but don’t let him know we’re looking. If we accuse him he might take it the wrong way.”

Luckily Goku transported us away before I could scream at them.

We were in the woods again, standing in the same clearing as the last night I had seen him. I covered my face with my hands and sat in the tall grass. The sun was starting to set over the horizon. Pan would worry if we were gone for much longer. I rubbed my eyes as Goku took a seat in front of me, watching my face with his sad black eyes. He twiddled his thumbs and waited for me to talk.

“Goku, they think you killed Chi-Chi,” I said softly.

He shrugged, staring gloomily at the ground. “I knew that the minute I called Gohan over when I woke up next to her dead body. You know, I’ve been friends with your mother since I was… well, much smaller than this.” His eyes filled up with tears and he closed them. “We’ve been through a lot together, Bulma and me. Whenever your father made her cry I’d go over and listen. I’m not very complicated. I like making people happy. It’s what I do. I’ll be doing it for all eternity.

“But no matter how many times I save the Earth; no matter how many fond memories there are in place of the bad, it seems like all they can see is my flaws.” Goku wiped his eyes, laughing. “I… I’ve destroyed so many threats to the universe that I lost count. Frieza, Baby, Omega Shenron, Majin Buu. I don’t want anything in return but some peace and quiet. But I come home and there’s a list of things I need to take care of. I’m tired of it. I’m tired of being taken for granted. Only Goten believes me.”

Dear god. Why was I being dragged into his personal life again?

I hesitated before putting my hand over his so he’d stop ripping grass out of the ground. “Everyone is just upset over Chi-Chi dying. We all know you had nothing to do with it. Let everything smooth over, okay? Don’t say anything to them about it. Just act natural.”

“I know,” Goku said. He turned his palm face up so he could lace his fingers through mine. “Listen to me, whining like a little kid.”

“I’d be pretty upset if my friends were accusing me of murder.”

“I’ll never hurt you,” he said earnestly. “Promise.”

“This isn’t a long term relationship. I’m just trying to be supportive, that’s all. If you keep hitting on me I’ll go tattle on you. So don’t push your luck.”

Goku smiled. “If you say so.”

We sat there until the moon began to rise. Crickets were chirping all around us. I sighed and started getting to my feet but Goku tugged me back down. He was still holding my hands in his. It was still light enough for me to see his nervous facial expression. Was he going to…

My stomach twisted into knots when he moved a bit closer. No, no, no. I’d never been kissed before. I definitely didn’t want Goku to be my first. His eyes appraised my face. His thumbs stroked the backs of my hands. The inside of my mouth went dry and he smiled encouragingly. Wait, was I overreacting again? Kissing wasn’t a big deal. I really wanted to see what it was like, anyway.

Something compelled me to lean toward him. We met in the middle for a brief kiss, not moving beyond a simple touch of the lips. His mouth was soft. When he pulled away I was still awkwardly in the dead zone between us; I quickly moved back and freed my hands from his grasp. Goku’s smile broadened when I hurried to my feet and dusted off my pants.

“I’m tired,” I lied.

Goku stood slowly, watching me with renewed interest. “Do what you need to. I’m going for a walk so I’ll be home later.”

It annoyed me that he wouldn’t bring me home with instant transmission. I pushed my energy under my feet and flew off in what I guessed was the direction of the Son house. When I turned to see how far Goku was, he’d become a speck. I could still tell he was watching me.


	11. Eleven

How much stupider could I get?

I walked into Goku’s house, staring straight ahead with my fingers touching my lips. Had I just kissed him? He was so much older than me. It felt more personal somehow, like we had just taken everything too far in a single motion. Dad already knew and it was only a matter of time until everyone else figured it out. Right now they thought he was lying. Thankfully his track record of telling the truth was terrible.

Pan peeked over the edge of the couch when I shut the door. She cocked her head, watching me walk forward like a zombie and sit in the recliner. I couldn’t help it. My mind was racing and my heart didn’t seem to be working. I had kissed Goku. What did this mean? Was I technically involved with him?

“Is grandpa okay?” Pan asked. “He looked upset.”

“Yeah. We just needed to talk about a few things.”

Oddly, this was enough of an explanation for her. There were no more questions after that so I went upstairs to wait for Goku in his room. We needed to have a serious talk. I needed to put my foot down and refuse to let things go any further. Chi-Chi must have been cursing me in Otherworld. 

There wasn’t much of anything left in Goku’s bedroom now besides his bed and nightstand. As mentioned by Pan, a picture of me from last school year was facing the bed. I sat down on it and picked up the frame to feel something dry and mildly sticky covering it. The years hadn’t changed me very much. I looked almost the same as when I was a little kid.

Goku came home a while later. When our eyes met from across the room I realized that I could never understand him. I wouldn’t be able to fathom the depths of his sadness or the enormity of the things he had lost over the years. We were worlds apart. My life had been mostly simple with a few detours along the way but Goku had never known normalcy. He was forever abnormal. 

When it came down to it, I was a little girl and he was a middle-aged man. 

The Saiyan sat next to me on the bed and put his heavy arm around my shoulders. If I wasn’t a half-breed, I would’ve been bent in half. I stared at my picture on his nightstand and wondered what I meant to him. I would never know the real truth. Was I a fling or was the famous Son Goku actually interested in a teenage girl? It seemed unlikely. Besides, it would never work out.

“Confused?” he asked.

That was even the half of it. I shrugged and looked down at my hands. They were trembling a bit. It was cold in the bedroom but I knew my own inner turmoil was the culprit. Goku kissed the side of my head and hugged me to his ribcage. I really wanted Chi-Chi to come back to life so I could go home.

We sat in silence. The night dragged on.

“Are you hungry?” Goku asked.

“No.”

He shifted, looking down at me. “Come on. I know you must want something. It’s been a long day. Pan could probably use some dinner, too. Let’s go downstairs and see what she wants.”

“Not interested in groping me tonight?” I said acidly.

“I’ve never touched you. Well, a little, but not in the bad way.” Goku smiled at a fond memory. “I didn’t make you kiss me and I let you go home the other day when you wanted to. I think I’m being pretty reasonable, right? Plus I got you some presents to make you happy.”

“Except the time you got too passionate screwing around in my bed and left a bruise on my thigh.”

“I’m sorry. Sometimes I get too excited when I’m playing, especially when it’s with pretty girls like you. Wouldn’t you rather learn these things with an adult instead of a teenage boy? They’re mean. They don’t appreciate women.”

“Learning through heartbreak is part of being a teenager,” I said. 

“It doesn’t have to be,” he replied, releasing my shoulders. He took one of my hands between his and rubbed my fingers. “Let me show you so they can’t take advantage of you. I know your parents won’t let you learn about those kinds of things on your own.”

His insistence was annoying me. I pulled my hand free and lay back on the bed to stare at the ceiling instead. There were some cracks running through it. A heavy rainfall could make it collapse. Goku lay beside me with his hands on his stomach and also gazed up at the decomposing ceiling. Neither of us said anything for a while yet again. That was how our conversations worked, though. A few moments of passionate declarations then… nothing.

Part of me was a bit hurt that Goku saw me merely as an object. I mean, it wasn’t like I didn’t assume that from the beginning. Why else would an older guy want me? But it was upsetting that my looks were preferred over anything else about me, including personality. Was I that bad?

When he kissed me I hoped it might have meant he was interested in me beyond the basics. I wasn’t stupid. I knew he was trying to get me comfortable with the thought of doing dirty things, especially with him around. It was a gradual process he took slowly so I wouldn’t be too startled and run away. I was willingly letting him do what he wanted, even if I knew it was wrong. I had low self-esteem.

A scowl twisted my features. I didn’t put up much of a fight. When he was touching himself in bed beside me I was honestly afraid to interrupt him. It seemed rude in a way. He wasn’t hurting anyone. I was old enough to start learning about things like it. Right? It made me enormously uncomfortable but it was totally normal to want to watch; to feel curious. 

Goku turned his head to face me. I kept my eyes riveted on a very interesting crack in the ceiling. How did I really feel? Forget the way he looked at me like a blind man seeing the sun for the first time. Forget the presents. Forget our nearly perfect kiss. How did I, Bulla Briefs, feel about Goku? 

It would take a long time to figure that out in its entirety. 

“Look at me,” he said.

I refused. 

“Why not?” he asked.

“You’re gonna kiss me again.”

“Don’t you want me to?”

“No,” I said.

“Then prove it.”

It was obvious that he was trying to goad me into it but I kind of wondered if I’d be able to resist. I turned on my side to face him and he did the same, searching my eyes with his own. We stared at one another for a while before I felt the compulsion to lessen the space between us. I only leaned forward an inch and Goku swiftly kissed me, pressing our lips together with more fervor than earlier.

He mouth was soft. He reached up to run his fingers through my hair. It almost felt normal.

We broke apart and he grinned goofily. I rolled my eyes and snuggled into my pillow. I had so much going on lately that I was always ready for sleep. Goku’s hand toyed with my hair for a few minutes and he kissed the crown of my skull. He was so tall that he could curl up and still be longer than me almost totally stretched out. I sighed heavily, eyelids beginning to droop.

“Your father knows,” Goku murmured. He was falling asleep, too.

“He always knows. I’m just waiting on someone to actually believe him.”

“No one will as long as we keep being careful.” His hand traveled to my back and unhooked my bra so he could give me a massage. “I guess it isn’t a good idea for me to visit you at home anymore. Vegeta’s just waiting to catch me in the act. He always wants to win.”

I raised an eyebrow, looking up at Goku. “I think this is less about winning and more about you screwing around with his sixteen year old daughter. That’s guaranteed to get under his skin.”

Our eyes met and I forgot what we were talking about. You would think black eyes would make a guy look kinda creepy but it really worked for Goku. He didn’t look soulless or possessed. As I gazed into his eyes the nagging concern in the back of my head came back. There it was again: the ancient sadness; the glittering of the unknown in his obsidian irises. It appealed to me somehow. I wanted to know more.

“You have a weird contradiction in your face,” I said, squinting at him. “You’re always smiling but your eyes look sad. It’s hard to tell unless you’re up really close.”

“Isn’t it always?”

Another good point. We both smiled and Goku suddenly kissed me again, this time holding the back of my head to push me closer. His tongue slid in my mouth and I grabbed his hair like I had wanted to do for weeks. It was thick and soft. A low growl vibrated in his chest and he pushed me on my back, pinning my arms to my sides so I couldn’t move. I scowled. He was halfway on top of me, licking his lips.

“Relax, Bulla. I don’t want to take you.” Goku’s eyes zeroed in one my neck. “Not yet, at least. We still have a lot of things to try before that happens.”

I squirmed. “See? This is why I don’t want you kissing me.”

“Why? Are you frustrated?”

“No.” It was technically a lie but whatever. 

“We can touch each other if you want. It feels good, especially at the end.”

My curiosity was piqued. Thankfully Goku could read my face pretty well and I didn’t need to say anything more. He wound an arm under my neck and the other traveled down between my legs. I flinched when he touched the hem of my underwear. 

“Shh,” he whispered, “I’m not going that far yet, silly.”

Three of his fingers rubbed the outside of my underwear very gently. Skin-to-skin contact seemed to be a little too much. I was glad he was willing to be patient with me. It felt as good as he kept telling me it would, maybe even better and I had a hard time staying quiet. He rested his forehead on mine, shushing me whenever a noise escaped from my lips. We weren’t alone, after all.

“Now I want you to touch me,” he said. “Just on the outside. We can try being naked another night when I have you to myself.”

My hand presently fell upon the hard thing between his legs. It turned out I didn’t need to do much touching: Goku rubbed himself into my palm. He groaned into my neck, now having a hard time keeping himself quiet. I felt dirty but I felt alive. It was kind of fun.

Soon he reached a hand down his pants and stroked himself instead, holding onto my hip for support. The rubbing between my legs stopped, leaving me feeling oddly hot and… wet? I curiously touched the wet spot with my fingertips and Goku moaned into my pillow as his entire body went stiff. When he collapsed beside me, breathing heavily, I withdrew my hand to see what was on it. The stuff was clear so I knew my period wasn’t coming.

Goku grabbed my wrist and stuck all three of my fingertips in his mouth at once to suck on them. He closed his eyes, licking with his tongue for a minute before letting my hand go. I wiped off his spit on his shirt, scowling. He offered me his own hand, which was covered in sticky stuff again.

“Remember?” he asked. “If you can fit my whole finger in your mouth I’ll get you something nice.”

“That tastes awful. What is going on with my body?”

“If you do what I said, I’ll tell you. Come on, Bulla. I’m asking nicely.”

I grimaced and did what he said, taking one finger in my mouth and quickly licking the sticky stuff off. Goku shook his head and smiled while I gagged on it. I thought drinking milk was hard. Whatever he was giving me did not go down easy. He wiped off the rest on his shirt and took it off, throwing it on the floor in a pile of shirts that were likewise ruined. It was too dark for me to admire his body.

“You’re perfect,” he said. “I don’t think I could’ve even wished for anyone better.”

The light was gone from his eyes again. Reality set in and I felt sick. “Just tell me.”

Goku rolled on his back, focusing on the ceiling. “It just means you like me a lot. Only certain men can make that happen so I wouldn’t try it with anyone else. Normally it hurts but I know what I’m doing.” A contended smile lit up his features but it still didn’t touch his eyes. “You can trust me to take care of you. All I want to do is make you happy.”

It was hard to separate fact from fiction. I turned on my side so my back was facing him and stared at the cracking wall. Goku really needed to fix his house.


	12. Twelve

School was a terrible drag and I found it hard to focus. Pan went off with her new friends—she’d acclimated well to high school and didn’t need me leading her around. My mind was elsewhere the entire day, thinking of what had happened between Goku and I or worrying my father would show up to break his neck. I considered writing a note for my parents and running away. 

On the way home, the terrible anger I had felt the night before came crawling back. They all really thought Goku murdered his wife. Chi-Chi was a nag and might have driven him a bit crazy but Goku didn’t have it in him to snuff out a life, especially hers. They were all upset and looking for answers in the wrong place. I scowled at the road as I drove increasingly faster. How could they?

Pan was already at my house when I arrived, sitting on the porch. She stood up and waved wildly before I could cut off the engine. Before I knew it she was in the passenger seat with a big grin on her face. There was a wad of money in her hand, which could only mean one thing. Shopping.

We swung by Shoppa’s house to pick her up on the way and drove up the biggest mall in the city. Maybe an afternoon of senseless wandering and buying was what I needed. It had always helped me feel better in the past. My mind needed to be taken off Goku and set to something healthier. Technically, I was helping the economy.

As soon as I was lost amongst the racks of clothes I completely forgot what I was so upset about. Pan kept asking me for advice and Shoppa demanded I try on nearly everything I glanced at. Being a teenager became simple again. There were no horrible secrets for me to keep, no one died, and my entire life revolved around shopping and my friends. 

For a while, I didn’t have feelings for a man three times my age.

“That guy you like if having a party tonight,” Shoppa said when we were having dinner in the food court. Her eyes were directed to Pan.

“Oh,” Pan said, turning red in the face.

I nibbled on a French fry. “Are we invited?”

“Obviously,” Shoppa said. “It’s gonna be an all-night thing and get this: there’s gonna be alcohol. Have either of you ever had it before? I sip some wine sometimes at dinner.”

“No way, I’m not doing that!” Pan exclaimed. 

“Live a little. Life is short, Panny.” Shoppa winked.

Night fell as it always did. We left the mall and headed home to get ready for the party at our own separate houses. Our ruse was a camping trip. We’d have to bring our clothes in duffel bags to the party—what was the kid’s name, Fry?—and finish getting ready there. I was happy to feel young again instead of old and miserable. Goku was fun but being with him made me so nervous.

As I packed my bag I heard my door creak open slightly. I turned to see dad standing with his arms crossed, fixating both black eyes on me. He watched as I bustled around the room getting things ready and never moved. He didn’t even blink. I hoped he didn’t think I was going to Goku’s house.

“Bulla,” he said.

I curled my hair behind an ear. “What?”

No words were forthcoming. He didn’t know how to start the conversation. I could tell by his discomfort that he knew something was going on. But how did you ask your daughter if she had been screwing around with your rival of nearly three decades? Dad’s awkward silence spoke volumes. He knew. He just couldn’t bring himself to accuse me of such a thing.

My father ground his jaw, struggling to rein in his temper. “You will always be my daughter. I will always protect you. If you need me to intervene, say it. If you’re happy, truly happy, I won’t interfere. But I don’t want you to be… coerced into doing anything you don’t want to.”

“I’m fine, dad. I’m not a little girl anymore and I know how to take care of myself. Things happen and work out strangely. But that doesn’t mean it’s good for everyone to know about it.”

“I will die before I see Kakarot hurt you,” he suddenly snapped, no longer leaning against the wall. “He is a loathsome creature, sobbing over his woman one moment and forgetting her in the next. He has the mental capacity of a small child. He’s irresponsible and does not have the tactical mind of a true Saiyan.”

Neither of us said a word. We stared at each other for a few minutes.

Dad’s shoulders gradually drooped as he calmed down. His eyes fell to mine, hard and pained. “Yet he has the heart of a human; a despicable weak spot for all things vulnerable. His endless capacity to love and feel compassion is the only thing keeping my hands away from his throat. This is bittersweet for me, Bulla. Kakarot is my sworn rival but he holds something very close to my heart.”

“Dad,” I said as tears welled up in my eyes, “it’s not like we’re married. Stop being all mushy. I hate it.”

“Kakarot won’t want to wait much longer. He’s an impetuous fool.”

“Wait much longer for what?”

The doorbell rang downstairs and dad was gone, leaving me to ruminate over what he had said. I wiped my eyes and tried to compose myself. Talking about feelings was weird but it reached a whole new level of weird when dad did it. He must have been seriously worried.

Pan and Shoppa were in the kitchen munching on cookies my mother made. Mom was smiling. It irked me to see her looking so damn composed when just last night she had been accusing her friend of murder. I snatched a cookie for myself and we all left the house, excited for what the night would bring. 

The party was already well under way when we got there. My friends disconnected from me to socialize with boys and I went to get myself a drink. I hadn’t had much alcohol but whenever the rare opportunity arose, I indulged. As I fixed a fruity, sugary drink in a cup I felt someone’s presence beside me. They were looking at me. My Saiyan senses weren’t terribly strong but I had a bit of a gift.

It was Fry. He was a senior with seriously big muscles that propelled him to quarterback of our football team. Of course, his body couldn’t even begin to rival Goku’s. Any amount of Saiyan blood made you perfectly physically fit, especially if you took the time to exercise and train. I thought about Goku’s big arms around me and started feeling terribly hot.

“Hey,” Fry said. “How’s it going?”

“Fine. I think Pan wanted to see you.”

“Yeah I know. She’s been following me around.” He leaned against the table. “Wanna get out of here? I was thinking of going for a walk.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You’ve got guts. My friend has a crush on you but you’re trying to get with me instead. Pan’s gonna cry when I tell her about this later.”

“Aw, come on. It’s just a walk.”

The guy had a point. I shrugged and took a sip of my drink before we quietly left the house together, immediately turning to head into the woods. There were some drunk kids wandering around already and we tried to avoid them. I could figure out what Fry liked and give Pan some tips. Was I technically taken or did Goku not count? My foot almost caught on a tree stump more than once.

The trees gave way to a pond. We sat in front of it and I admired the night sky, marveling at how fast the days were going by. Goku was stressing me out beyond belief. I didn’t even notice time passing anymore. Fry took a swig from his beer and leaned back. It took a lot for me to get drunk and most drugs didn’t affect me body very much. I was pretty safe.

Everything was quiet for a while.

“Do you realize you’re the hottest girl in school?” Fry asked.

No one needed to tell me that. I looked a lot like my mother, who was considered to be gorgeous in her heyday. I rolled my eyes and nodded, lying back on the grass to get a better view of the sky. Next he would ask me out, I’d say no, he’d get mad and storm off. I was doing Pan a favor.

Fry touched my hand and smiled. “Your friend isn’t really my type. I’m looking for a trophy.”

“Flattering me won’t get you anywhere.”

“I guess I’ll need some help, then.”

The bushes behind us began to rustle. When I turned, my spine prickled. There were two other guys standing there with smiles on their faces. I could easily overpower one or two humans but three might be too many. A cool breeze blew across the pond, rippling the glassy surface. My last resort was flying away but they would tell everyone at school. 

My mind was abuzz with possibilities. Should I try to run or wait to see what they would do? 

Fry was suddenly on top of me, pinning my wrists to the damp ground. I screamed and tried to throw him off but the other two quickly restrained my arms and covered my mouth. They were all laughing and congratulating one another as Fry unbuttoned my jeans, tugging them over my hips. I was too terrified to focus my energy in one place—

“I told you how bad teenage boys are.”

All of our eyes fell upon a hulking shadow several feet away. Goku was cracking his knuckles and fixating a positively terrifying look on Fry. He grinned and popped his neck when the teenage boy rose to his feet with an irritated scowl. The two goons were still holding me down.

“We’re busy,” Fry said.

Goku’s eyebrows furrowed angrily. He stopped smiling. “You’re lucky I found you instead of her father. Vegeta’s not exactly happy right now and I’m sure he’d love to snap a few necks. I’ll gladly get rid of all three of you. No mercy for anyone who touches my Bulla.”

“Dude, how old are you? You’re a freak!”

The rest happened very quickly. I heard a sickening snap and saw Fry’s lifeless body crumple to the ground first. Goku was deft when he wanted to be. My captors exchanged a glance and ran off into the forest but there couldn’t be any witnesses. There were two more snaps from deep within the woods as I sat up and rubbed the sensation back into my wrists. 

A few minutes later, Goku returned, dragging the other two bodies. He tossed them on top of Fry’s and sat down on the ground beside me, biting his nails. The personality shift had happened again. He’d been so angry he didn’t know what he was doing. As they say, it all went black.

I laughed. It was all insane. There was nothing left to do but laugh. 

“I’m sorry,” Goku said. “I don’t like them touching you.”

“They were doing it without my permission anyway.” I rebuttoned my pants.

“Teenage boys are terrible. You’re better off without them.”

“Pan had a crush on the one kid you killed first. I guess it’s better she didn’t get to know him, though. Have you spoken to my father?”

“I don’t need to. Vegeta isn’t a hard person to figure out.” Goku stared at the bodies and leaned forward to push them in the pond with a swipe of his hand. “He knows and he’s mad. Do you think anyone will find out I killed them? It seemed like the right thing to do. They were bad.”

Another laugh escaped my mouth. A group of horny teenage boys deserved to have their necks snapped but Frieza and Cell both had second chances thrown their way even after they murdered countless innocent people. Goku even wished for Buu to be reincarnated. 

We sat in silence for a while. Goku took my hand in his eventually and led me back toward the party. He wanted to bring Pan home. I convinced him to let me convince her so she didn’t look like a loser. Before he left, he kissed my forehead.


	13. Thirteen

It was the dead of winter.

My friends and I were out on the lake ice skating. Pan had found a new boyfriend easily enough, though they were all seriously paranoid there was a serial killer roaming the streets. Most of us stayed inside, away from the woods and the dangerous outdoors. We were in a five person ground and it felt safe enough, what with me being a half-Saiyan and Pan a quarter-Saiyan. 

The boyfriend is question was Karahi. He was closer to our age and kind of a nerd like Pan. Shoppa and I both approved and they had been dating for a month. He was quiet and didn’t mind tagging along during shopping trips or other girly outings. 

We laughed and danced on the ice, sometimes falling and bruising our behinds. School was out for a week and all of us intended on fully enjoying it. We were having sleepovers at each other’s houses until classes resumed and life went back to being dull. I exhaled on my hands and rubbed them together with the thick wool mittens my mother bought me. It was getting frigid.

As I watched everyone smiling and twisting through the air, my mind wandered. It had been a long time since Goku showed up in my bedroom. Either he was afraid of my father or something had gone wrong. He never even came to dinner at my house or Pan’s for that matter. I was nearly free from his grasp.

There wasn’t much snow on the ground; maybe an inch. Mostly everything just froze over and the temperature dropped a lot. I squatted over the ice to squint into the depths of the lake, wondering if I could see anything down below. It was pretty black. The light had a hard time filtering through the ice.

I had a weird urge to smash the ice and dive to the bottom just to see if anything was still swimming around. It wouldn’t be very hard. Half of my blood was from the Saiyan race and I was supposed to be damn proud of that, according to dad. Everyone’s laughter became a distant echo and I narrowed my eyes as the urge grew. I’d probably survive.

“Bulla, are you ready to head back?” called Shoppa.

It was gone.

I raised my eyes to see my friends standing a few feet away with their arms around one another’s waists. They all had red noses and were grinning from ear to ear. Their faces made me realize how… different I felt. I hadn’t been myself in so long that I was forgetting how to act. I stood up and smiled back at them as we trudged down the mountain. 

Along the way, I gradually fell behind. They didn’t seem to notice. I stopped at one point to check out a pretty pink flower sprouting from the hard, cold earth and looked up to see they were gone. All I could hear was their laughter echoing off the mountainside. No one really noticed when I vanished. I kept to myself; I hid in the shadows and floated aimlessly like a ghost.

Dad couldn’t save me. No one could.

“Hi, Bulla.”

The voice had me on my feet in seconds. I saw Goku standing a few feet away, wringing his hands in front of his stomach and smiling weakly at me. He waited until I was separated from the herd. His intentions weren’t pure. I blinked stupidly, hoping someone would swoop in and save me.

Goku looked at his feet. “I’ve been thinking for a while now and I wanted you to come with me now. I want to know where you are. I want you to be mine.”

The mountain was quiet during the winter. Would screaming do me any good?

He walked forward a step and awkwardly stopped in the next, falling back on his heels. I took a few steps back and my shoes crunched the frozen grass. We stood there in silence for a while, with Goku staring down and me praying he would lose his confidence and leave. His shoulders were hunched.

“My parents are expecting me,” I said.

No response. His fingers were moving rapidly in sync with one another as he wrung his hands. The smile was gone but I could see his lips moving slightly; he was talking to himself. I hesitated for another minute, trying to suppress the old feelings I had worked so hard to hide. It took a long time for me to convince myself I wasn’t attracted to Goku on any level. I needed to leave.

When I stepped back again he jerked forward, rapidly approaching like he was drunk. I carefully took a few more steps back and he followed without missing a beat. The tension was mounting. My eyes flickered to his hands and I suddenly remembered all those nights they had been all over me, exploring and showing me things I never could’ve imagined.

No. It was wrong. I had to fly away.

“I’m… I… I…” Goku stuttered terribly and continued walking forward even as I backed away. “I… love you. I bought you nice things, I showed you nice things. I thought you loved me, too. Even Vegeta seemed to be okay with it. Why are you avoiding me?”

I swallowed nervously but my mouth was dry. “Dad hardly approved. It killed him. I thought I liked you but you’re not you. The Goku I know wouldn’t snap the necks of three teenage boys. We’ve been doing really bad things and it isn’t right. You can’t buy me things and think it’ll be okay.”

“Those boys were hurting you,” Goku said. “You were too afraid to fly. There’s no way for me to know if they would’ve tried it again. I let Frieza get away and look what he did. I love you, Bulla, and I want you to stay with me. When we kissed it made everything fall into place.”

“No it didn’t. Stop telling me how to feel. You’ve been doing it since the first time you showed up in my bedroom. I’m not a stupid little girl. I don’t need your help with boys and I never want to see your face again. Go back to your stupid house and leave me alone or I’ll tell my father.”

The next second I was pinned to a tree with Goku’s considerable weight holding me hostage there. He sealed my lips with his when I started to scream and ignored my frantic pawing at his broad back, knotting his hands in my hair eagerly. I tried to fly but no amount of energy could boost me into the sky. As usual, I was at his mercy.

When he finally pulled away, he was trembling. He swallowed hard and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down his throat like it was choking him. I shoved him back angrily, fighting the tears springing into my eyes. Why me? Why was it always me?

The sound of Pan’s voice calling my name floated up the silent mountain from far away. Goku was suddenly even more nervous than before, unable to stop twisting his fingers even though they were turning red and raw. She called for me again and he squeezed his eyes shut. 

“I have to go,” I said. My lips hurt.

Goku shook his head furiously and started pacing, crushing holes in the frozen grass without noticing. He’d been thinking about approaching me for a while but he didn’t have the right opportunity. I stuck with my friends for the most part to stop bad things from happening. 

Realization seeped into my mind like a boiling poison; I could barely think straight as Pan’s voice came closer. My words came out as a whisper. I was afraid to say it.

“You’re not going to let me leave.”

There was no reply, not even a glance. My blood froze over. I could feel my pupils contracting, shriveling up to small pinpricks to gauge whether or not I had a shot at running away from Goku. Sure I could scream, but did it matter? There was no sensation in my hands but I knew they were shaking. 

Pan came too close. 

Goku’s head snapped up and the next minute, we weren’t on the mountain. I really hated instant transmission. It felt like my soul was being torn through a cheese grater and filtered down a horribly narrow tube just to be spat out at the end like garbage. I didn’t know how Goku could bear using it so frequently, but I wasn’t fast enough to tell him to fly instead.

We were on the bottom floor of his house by the front door. The second my right foot twisted to run he grabbed me by the back of my neck, now much more comfortable in the safety of his home. He smiled as I kicked at his legs and carried me up the rickety stairs.

I was on my back in his bed. Goku crawled on top of me and pinned my wrists on either side of my head with his huge hands. Struggling was useless. He was dense as a piece of moon rock. His black eyes glittered excitedly until I screamed for help; his hands hurriedly covered my mouth and he shushed me.

“I tried to be nice,” he said, “and I even waited so you could think about it. But I can’t wait anymore. I love you, Bulla, and I want you here with me. No one will ever know. They’ll think you disappeared on the mountain. That means I can keep you here forever and ever and neither of us has to sleep alone at night from now on. I’ll bring you presents every day.”

It was surreal. Well, most of my life had felt that way for a while now but I still had a hard time believing that Goku had lost his mind. I honestly doubted he had ever been completely sane. It was obvious but no one noticed. We all chalked it up to being a part of Goku’s “loveable” personality. The gentle, brutishly powerful protector of Earth—no, the entire universe—was just a bit unstable. 

His hands were curious and surprisingly gentle, trembling against my flesh like he was afraid I might break. I certainly felt fragile. I was tiny and helpless despite my alien heritage; a mouse trapped under the merciless paws of a hungry cat. Goku played and enjoyed himself while I prayed for it to end. Death was better than eternal torture. 

When we were naked my reverie broke and I started panicking and thrashing. Goku held me down with his immense weight and I could feel every inch of solid muscle pressing against me. He paused to smile at me, choosing to ignore my terror and mistake it for happiness. He touched my hair. God, it felt like he was on fire—Saiyans were so damn hot.

“I’ll never let anyone hurt you,” Goku said.

I started laughing. 

A few more minutes and my last barriers were down, but I was still laughing in spite of the excruciating pain. It was getting hard to breathe between Goku’s weight and his ferocious thrusts. He covered my mouth when I refused to stop cackling. The only sounds were his hot panting in my ear and the methodical creaking of his bed. It was otherwise horribly silent.

“Chi-Chi,” he groaned, burying his face in my neck. “I love you.”

There was a reflexive gag in my chest like I was going to puke. My subsequent scream mutated into more hysterical laughter. It was hilarious how two people having such an intimate moment could be in two totally different worlds. Together, but just barely.

Goku cried. I laughed. Either way, we both got what we wanted.


	14. Fourteen

When I was five, my father brought our entire family to a distant planet for vacation. It was nice enough. The air was thinner than Earth’s and gravity was stronger, but it posed no problem to Trunks and I. We flew around the desolate fields, catching weird animals while mom and dad lounged at the cabin. It was fun until I started noticing unbearable itching underneath my skin.

It turned out the planet hosted parasitic worms that burrowed into the flesh and crawled around at night. Mom fainted when we saw one slithering in my leg. Dad tried to help but he was terrified of worms. Trunks just thought it was cool. Thankfully, Dende was able to heal me a few days later.

That same horrible, itchy, violated feeling was back with a vengeance. I really wanted to lie still and fuse with the bed sheets but I couldn’t stop moving and scratching. There was an uncomfortable pulse between my legs and I could still feel fluid residue making my thighs stick together as I tossed and turned in the small bed, hoping I could disappear. 

The crawling under my skin made it impossible to stay in bed. My legs trembled as I stepped on the cool hardwood floor and made my way toward the bedroom door. Blood rushed to my head, making me stumble and nearly fall. My hand fell upon the doorknob and I twisted it.

Nothing. The handle turned slightly just to repeatedly click against the lock. Annoyed, I tried ripping the doorknob from the door but it remained firmly in place. I was tired and afraid. It was dark. I wanted to go home. I threw my weight against the door and it still didn’t budge, not even an inch. Frustrated, I paced over to the small window near the bed to kick out the glass. 

One well-aimed kick was enough to totally destroy the window, including the frame. I climbed into the hole and managed to fly out, though I dipped and wavered erratically as I flew. My energy faded fast, forcing me to land in a collection of bushes. I sat up and tried to collect my thoughts. 

“Bulla, what are you doing outside?!”

Goku was a distance away with a huge fish slung over his shoulder. He dropped it on the ground and pulled off his shirt as he approached me. I scrambled away on my hands and knees but he was there soon enough. He quickly pulled the shirt over me and hoisted me to my feet, chastising me for going outside stark naked. I hadn’t even realized it.

We went back inside after my brief taste of freedom. Goku sat me down at the kitchen table and offered me a bagel with butter, which I grudgingly ate. I was too hungry to refuse. He sat across from me, beaming like a ray of sunshine and fidgeting with the tablecloth as I ate. His black eyes were examining my face for any signs of emotion but I was borderline catatonic.

When I was finished he added the dish to the clutter in the sink and pulled his chair beside mine. Our thighs touched. It looked like the chair was gonna collapse under his weight. He put his arms on the table and folded his hands together patiently, clearly expecting me to say something.

I bit the inside of my cheek. There was nothing to say. Well, maybe there was, but I didn’t want to talk about it. If I tried really hard I might be able to forget the entire night. I could be back in my bedroom watching TV while mom chatted on the phone downstairs and dad ransacked the fridge. Trunks would stop by for a visit when he was done at Capsule Corp. and everything would be normal.

“My shirt looks nicer on you than me,” Goku said. He sounded so innocent and genuine.

I looked down. It was big, of course. The hem was all the way down at my knees. It smelled vaguely of water and sweat and that made me sick to my stomach. Goku gently took one of my arms in his hands and rolled up the sleeve to my elbow, tightening and tying it with the slack. He reached over me to do the same thing with my other sleeve. My stomach knotted. Get away from me.

“There,” he said, smoothing my hair down, “much better. Now you don’t look like you just rolled out of bed. Do you want anything else?”

I shook my head and wrapped my arms around myself. My skin was crawling. Why had I ever thought any of this was a good idea? He was seriously disturbed. I should’ve told my parents as soon as he showed up in my bedroom. I was blinded by my desire to see the good in him; the heart of gold everyone was always going on and on about.

All I could see in Son Goku’s heart was a writhing mess of resent and sorrow; of regret over his lost love clouded by his unhealthy need to be needed. I didn’t want to look any deeper. I was afraid to. Goku had more problems than a sixteen year old girl could solve. I had no clue why I ever wanted to know more. Anyone actually looking into his eyes was immediately aware that something was very wrong.

Sometimes, if I tried really hard, I could see the same pain in dad’s face. They knew what true loss was. They had been beaten to a pulp by aliens who were so evil it made you physically sick being in their presence. Their entire race had been obliterated by a psychopath with neutron stars at his fingertips. The façade broke in dad’s eyes every once in a while. 

It had never broken in Goku until Chi-Chi died. He was the image of happiness and innocence. It shattered easily enough and the true nature within was free to come out. If he turned his head the right way or showed his teeth in a certain light, the broken image was reflected and no one could tell. He worked very hard at painting the image of confidence while his insides were roiling. 

Goku led me out of the kitchen to the basement. I expected it was where he would hide me. He helped me down the stairs and proudly blabbered about how he had fixed it for me. It hadn’t changed too much. He put in a bed. There were what looked like coloring books on the coffee table, along with pens, pencils, and markers. Sheets of loose-leaf were stacked neatly on the nightstand.

“You don’t have to stay here forever. I just want to make sure you don’t leave when I’m gone.” His arm slithered around my back and he kissed the top of my head. “Your parents are probably worried. It’s almost morning so you’ve technically been lost on the mountain all night. They’ll want me to help look but this time you’re not going back.”

“Dad’s gonna come here first,” I said.

“Vegeta’s reckless, not stupid. He wouldn’t come here and risk anything happening to you. I guess he might if he gets really desperate but with me being immortal and all I don’t really see the point.”

“I’m his daughter and he loves me. He’ll come.”

“Why would he? You’re safe and warm with me. I’ll let you back out again when you’re thinking a little more rationally and everything will be perfect. But I know I can’t trust you to go outside and come home so you’ll have to stay in here for a while. Don’t worry, you’ll see everyone again.”

“You’re crazy,” I said. “They’ll figure it out eventually. Gohan already knows something’s wrong with you. All it takes is one conversation with my dad.”

A few moments later, I was being led to the bed. When I sat down I kept my legs firmly crossed. Goku sat in front of me Indian-style and smiled. I hated how he smiled. It didn’t look like he wanted to be between the sheets again so I managed to keep myself from panicking. 

“Bulla,” he said, “you’re all mine now. Your father knows you belong to me and he won’t try to take you away.” He reached forward to brush my hair away from my face. “That would be instigating a fight.”

My mind reviewed memories, rewinding the past few months like tapes. Dad hadn’t spoken to me in a while but I stumbled upon a particular event that stuck with me. When we were in my bedroom the night I went to the party, the one where Goku snapped the boys’ necks. It was one of the last times dad really talked to me. 

_“Kakarot won’t want to wait much longer. He’s an impetuous fool.”_

Ice crept into my veins. Kakarot won’t want to wait much longer. Was that dad’s way of telling me Goku would kidnap me? Why had my father allowed it to happen? I scowled deeply and pulled Goku’s shirt over my knees, now beginning to feel anger in my vast emptiness. Saiyans were horrible.

Goku looked down at his hands. “I’m sorry for saying Chi-Chi’s name last night.”

“I don’t care,” I said.

“Well I just wanted you to know that I won’t next time. She’s been gone for a while now and I want to be happy with you.”

“Why does that have to involve holding me against my will?”

“You’re only sixteen, Bulla,” he said. “There are a lot of people who want to hurt you. I’m afraid everyone will know about us before they’re ready to accept it. I don’t want them to hate me. But if we wait a while they’ll understand and we can all get along.”

“I said it before and I’ll say it again. You’re crazy.”

There was a loud knock upstairs. Goku’s eyes suddenly hardened over and he took off his sash to tie it tightly around my mouth. I struggled with the gag as he hurried upstairs, slamming the basement door shut and leaving me alone. Dad was already here. He was gonna knock Goku out, run downstairs and bring me back home where I belonged. 

People started talking.

“Dad, Bulla’s gone.” Gohan.

“I’ll help you look for her,” Goku said. “I can just pinpoint her energy and bring her home.”

“We already tried that,” said Goten.

Uh oh. It wasn’t looking good for Goku.

“You know what it means if you can’t find her energy,” Goku said. “She’s gone. Did you come here to ask me to help you tell Bulma? I really can’t. I don’t want to deal with more crying.”

Gohan sighed. “Dad, you know there’s more than one possibility. Either she’s gone, like you said, or she’s near an incredibly high energy level that’s obscuring hers. Now, who on this planet populated with weak humans has a high energy level?”

No one said anything for a few minutes, but I was excited. They knew he had me. They were trying to get him to admit it before they barged into the house, came downstairs, and set me free. If only I could rip the damn sash off my mouth. I could scream and save us some time.

“We’re going to use the Dragon Balls to wish her back from the dead,” Goten said. He sounded sad. “If she doesn’t come back or Shenron tells us she’s still on Earth… well, I think we know where to look.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Goku said.

“You’re breaking Bulma’s heart.” Gohan wasn’t interested in beating around the bush. “You’re lucky we came here instead of Vegeta because he’s not happy. We’re giving you a chance to do what’s right and give a little girl back to her family. Please take it.”

They left a few moments later. I heard the front door shut and Goku screamed furiously. I leapt off the bed to hide underneath it as he came storming down the stairs, practically breaking them. He knelt down on the floor beside the bed and dragged me from underneath it. His hands wrapped around my biceps with a painfully tight grip; he was no happy. He gave me a violent shake.

“What did you do?” he hissed.

I grinned hugely against the gag. Absolutely nothing. His sons were just much smarter than him.

Goku pushed me down on the bed and twisted a fistful of my hair. “You’re being bad. Very bad. Now I have to think of a way out of this.”

Our second time together was even worse than the first. Goku was angry. He ignored me. I hated how volatile his moods were now. I was walking on thin ice at all times. My shirt never came off—he was more worried about what was between my legs.

When he was done he fell asleep beside me. Why didn’t they take me home?


	15. Fifteen

We spent a lot of time rehearsing.

Goku sat across from me on the bed, only wearing boxers, and held my shoulders firmly to look deep into my eyes. He wanted me to tell them I was happy living in his house and that I didn’t want to leave. I was only sixteen so my parents could force me to even if I refused. He was at his wit’s end. He had nowhere to hide me and nowhere to run.

I knew he wanted to move me to another planet. It didn’t matter—even if he did, the wish on the Dragon Balls still wouldn’t come true. They would all know I was alive somewhere and dad would stop at nothing to find me. Even if I insisted I loved Goku and wanted to stay with him, it was still illegal. Not to mention downright wrong. I needed to go to school.

“Remember that I didn’t make you come here,” Goku said. “You never told me you were uncomfortable with anything and we’re both happy. You weren’t happy at home.”

Huh. He had a point. Had I ever said no? Even on the mountain I never outright refused. But I wanted to leave. Right? I scratched my head and nodded. Goku smiled and kissed me on the forehead, very much confident that I wouldn’t rat him out. I didn’t know if I would. I wanted to but I felt bad. 

What was the pain of losing someone you loved? I had never lost anything really important to me. Goku had been married to Chi-Chi for years. They were always together in times of peace. I didn’t know how that kind of soul-tearing loss could really affect you. Maybe it was wrong of me to judge Goku. He had a big heart. It was possible he couldn’t tolerate loss.

No. I should be mad. He took me to his house against my will, forced me down and…

We were lying down. Goku was rubbing my back, humming softly. I wanted to be mad at him but I couldn’t bring myself to uncork the resentment in my stomach. He attacked me. He didn’t even seem to know he did something wrong. In his eyes, I genuinely wanted it and had trouble telling him. God, he was so stupid. Why the hell was I having such a hard time hating him?

There was a deeply disturbed man lying next to me who really needed help. He missed his wife terribly and there was nothing I could do to help him. This was a problem adults had to solve. His problems started way before Chi-Chi died and just got worse after she was gone. He needed pills or something.

“I can’t lose you, too,” Goku whispered.

Goddammit. He was playing me like an upright violin.

A few minutes later, he suddenly rose from the bed and sat on the edge for a while, gazing across the room. I turned to look at his broad back that practically rippled with muscle. He leaned forward to rest his head in his hands and his skin contorted around the bulk he spent so many years training for. Goku was big. I still couldn’t get over it. It was hard to believe he was real sometimes.

The Saiyan turned to look at me and I saw it again when our eyes met—fathomless pain. He smiled weakly. My heart was pounding so hard I thought my rib cage would break. I wanted to comfort him, to tell him it would all be okay. But I couldn’t. I didn’t know how. What did it feel like to lose someone you love so dearly? There was no way I could help him.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “They won’t let you stay with me.”

“You can’t blame them. You’re still on the watchlist for murdering your wife. They’re probably worried you’ll do the same thing to me. And there’s the huge age difference.”

Goku frowned. “You’re old enough to know what’s right and wrong. You liked what we did, right? I wanted you to know what it feels like. I was being nice.”

Nice. Sneaking into my bedroom at night to grope me, kidnapping me off a mountain, and taking my virginity by force were his idea of “nice.” I knew there was good intentions buried very deep beneath the surface bad stuff, but still… he must literally be crazy if he thought any of that was nice.

When I failed to respond Goku’s frown deepened. “Bulla? Didn’t you like it?”

The second time was worse than the first. He was mad at me that time. I hadn’t taken a shower for a day or two now and I really wanted to scrub my skin off. My gaze dropped to my arms lying limp in my lap. The baggy sleeves made it impossible to see, but there were purple bruises on my forearms and probably many more on the back of my neck. It was humiliating even being in the same room with him. He had seen all of me.

My eyes widened. Memories were trickling back bit by bit. I’d seen Goku totally naked before, mostly because he was shameless about nudity. But it took on a whole new meaning during sex. Desire brought out the animal rather than the quirky, well-meaning man I had known my whole life. It was weird thinking of him looking at my body and wanting me that way.

“You must have liked it,” Goku said. “You were moaning and stuff. Doesn’t that mean you like it?”

“I guess.”

“You guess? That’s not a good answer.” He cocked his head, now almost facing me again. “I don’t want you to be mad at me. You can tell me if I’m hurting you. It’s hard for me sometimes. You want to stay here with me, don’t you? We can be happy.”

“All this will lead to is… nothing. It’s just gonna end badly for both of us. My parents are gonna barge in here and take me home in a few hours and no amount of pleading will change that.”

Now he was fully turned toward me. He took one of my hands in his and propped my chin up on his fingertip. I was afraid to look in his eyes. That led me down the road to ruin. I looked straight at his mouth and watched it curve into a sadder frown. He was disappointed.

“You were laughing,” he said. “I thought it meant you were happy.”

I shrugged and kept staring at his lips. They were nice. Oddly, none of us Saiyans seemed to grow any body hair. I only had to shave like once a month and I’d seen everyone else with our blood shirtless a ton of times. No one had chest or armpit hair. I was the only female half breed. Pan barely had any Saiyan left in her to qualify.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t want to do it. I thought you were teasing. You wanted to kiss me and sometimes Chi-Chi did that as a joke.”

Hmm. The Saiyan race ended with my death. I was the last woman to have a recognizable trace in me. I wondered if the planet would be more peaceful when we were all gone.

Goku suddenly grabbed my wrist and I squealed in pain. My bruises were still fresh. He shoved the sleeve up and glared furiously at the multicolored spots all over my skin. His grip tightened. He threw my hand away which would have broken a normal person’s arm. I quickly rolled the sleeve back down, hoping it wouldn’t set him off again.

“You didn’t tell me it hurt. If you said something, I would’ve stopped.” Goku folded his arms. It looked a little menacing. “It’s hard for me to tell the difference.”

“So when I was screaming and you covered my mouth, you thought I was teasing you.”

Now he was scowling. “Well you don’t need to be so squirmy and whiny. I know what’s best for you, Bulla. You’re too young to know.”

“Tell that to my father when he comes here to kick your ass.”

“I don’t know why you keep saying that,” he said. “You know it isn’t true.”

“Dad loves me. He’ll pound you into the dirt when he finds out about what you’ve been doing.”

“Well, gee.” Goku rubbed the back of his head, smiling. “Isn’t it gonna be kinda awkward for you to tell him you and I… you know. Have been together? I can’t even imagine the look on his face. He’ll be too embarrassed to do anything if you ask me.”

There was a shred of truth in his words. It wouldn’t be easy telling my father any of that. Maybe it could wait until I was safely out of harm’s way. I could say he made me draw a lot of pictures or something. I turned away from Goku and shut my eyes, hoping he’d take the hint and go away.

Someone started knocking on the door a while later. Goku got up and I moved to follow him, but he made me stay in the basement. I sat next to the door and listened, hoping it was my parents coming to get me. I wanted to go home. But I kind of wanted to stay. 

“Where is my daughter?!” I heard mom scream.

A lot of people walked into the tiny house and I eagerly pressed myself closer to the door. It was hard to tell, but it seemed like everyone came along. They must have been bracing for a fight with Goku. He was the most powerful being in the universe, though. Even a group of strong fighters would have a hard time beating him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Goku said.

“Shenron said she’s still alive,” Gohan said, irritated. “Are you hiding her here or did you bring her to another planet? We all really want to go home, dad, so just tell us.”

“If you even laid a finger on her,” my mother said, “you’ll be in a whole new world of pain.”

“Is this because of mom?” Goten asked.

“Dad, tell us where she is.” Gohan was not happy.

“Vegeta can’t wait to come here and break your neck,” mom said.

“You know you can’t take little girls away from their parents,” Goten said. “We’ve been over this so many times before—”

“What?” mom shrieked. “When did this happen before?!”

“Where is Bulla?” Gohan demanded.

“It was a while ago. He met some teenage girl and took her home.” Goten laughed bitterly. “No wonder mom was so stressed out. I bet that’s what killed her.”

They were all talking over each other. I felt a tingling in my arm—I should’ve pounded on the door. I was frozen in place listening to them bicker. Goku was silent. I didn’t even hear him breathing. He wanted them to forgive him. I shrank back and rested my forehead on my knees. They didn’t have to fight right now. They should be more worried about bringing me home.

The handle suddenly started jiggling. I darted down the stairs and crawled under the bed again, trying to hide from the argument. Someone pounded on the door and yelled my name. It sounded like Gohan. This whole situation hit him where it hurt. He had a daughter my age.

“I’ll gladly help you look for her,” Goku said.

“Goten, help me open this,” Gohan said.

A few seconds passed and the door burst open. They were strong enough to force it. I saw two feet appear in front of me and realized Goku used instant transmission to get to me before they did. A lot of people walked downstairs. I crawled toward the wall, ignoring the dirty floor. My mouth was sealed shut. I didn’t want to be heard or seen. I was humiliated.

They would see me and they would know. They’d all imagine it, whether they wanted to or not.

“Get out of the way,” mom hissed. “Bulla, are you here? Come out, honey. We’re taking you home.”

Goku growled. “She’s mine.”

“She’s sixteen,” Gohan said. “She belongs to her parents. Please don’t make this any worse.”

“She belongs to me. I won’t let any of you touch her.” Goku stood firmly in place.

There was a pregnant pause. They knew there was no way they could fight Goku and win. They couldn’t force him to give me up. It was nerve-wracking. The most powerful man in the universe was unhealthily obsessed with me. I started chewing my nails, debating whether or not I should open my mouth.

When mom spoke, she sounded like she was on the verge of tears. “Goku, why are you doing this to me? Bulla is my daughter. You can’t take her away from me like this. We’ve been friends for all these years and it means nothing to you.”

“Things happen,” Goku said. “Bulla and I fell in love while all of you were sitting around the dinner table talking about me murdering Chi-Chi. We had a lot of time to get to know one another.”

“I told you he was watching us,” Goten said.

“Dad, we’re just exploring every possibility. The coroner exhumed mom’s body and told us there was no foul play involved. You have to admit the circumstances were weird.” Gohan always used big words.

“I wouldn’t murder my wife. I can’t believe any of you would even think that. Bulla knew I didn’t without even asking. She’s the only one who’s been nice to me since Chi-Chi died. All of you are too busy framing me to care. Bulla’s a very nice girl and I don’t want any of you ruining that.”

None of them knew what to do or say. I was only a few steps away—I could see mom’s heels a few feet in front of Goku’s bare feet. They couldn’t fight him head on and I really didn’t want to leave. It was embarrassing just thinking about what I looked like. My arms were bruised, my hair was dirty, and I hadn’t slept at all. They would look at me and they would know.

Mom started crying a few minutes later. Gohan’s black shoes moved over to comfort her and I saw Goten drop to his knees. I scurried back as far as I could but he lowered his head to the floor and our eyes met through the darkness. He smiled at me before Goku stepped in front of his line of vision.

“At least let us see her,” Goten said.

Goku tapped his foot thoughtfully before stepping out of the way. I saw Goten’s wide black eyes stare at me for a few seconds, then he reached forward and offered me his hand. My skin was crawling again. I didn’t want to be touched. I shrank back so far the wall behind me felt like it was gonna break.

“Come on out,” Goten said gently. “Your mother wants to see you.”

“Bulla?” mom managed between sobs. “Bulla, are you okay?”

I had to at least show her I was okay. Nervous, I gradually pulled myself across the dirty floor until I was at the edge of the bed. Goten tried to take my arm and I jerked away. He turned and shared a loaded look with his brother. I crept out into the light and Goku immediately helped me to my feet, growling again when Goten reached out. Moving around made me light-headed. I had to lean on Goku.

My mother’s lower lip quivered and she burst into tears again. I was aware that my eyes were wide and staring but I couldn’t help it. It was bewildering. They all knew what happened. I should have told them but I never did. Goten looked at me for a while before shaking his head and turning away. His brother passed my mother off to him and knelt in front of me, searching my face.

“No one knows you’re here, Bulla,” Gohan said. “We haven’t told Pan or any of your friends. None of this is your fault so you don’t have to be worried about us thinking of you any differently. You’re only sixteen. None of us blame you. But I do need to know if you’re okay.”

When I looked up at Goku, he nodded. I did the same.

“Do you want to go home?” Gohan asked.

It was a loaded question. Did I want to go home? I glanced at my mother and shrugged. There would be a lot of questions I didn’t want to answer. 

Gohan looked up at his father and scowled. “She needs to go home, dad.”

“She is home,” Goku said firmly.

Before anyone could say anything more, there was a loud crash outside followed by the sound of my brother’s voice pleading with someone. My heart beat faster and I pressed closer to Goku but he was grinning from ear-to-ear. People came storming into the house and soon enough, I saw my father tailed by Trunks at the bottom of the stairs.

Dad’s eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his skull. He screamed and charged at Goku.


	16. Sixteen

Dad and Goku immediately disappeared when they connected. There was a moment of silence before we heard the sounds of energy blasting holes in the earth outside. Gohan shook his head and gestured for Goten to lead my mother upstairs. She was hysterical. Nothing would ever be the same. When they were gone, I noticed my brother was still staring at me from across the room.

Gohan cleared his throat. “Trunks, you should probably help your father. We need to calm both of them down and I’m afraid they’ll kill one another before that happens. I’ll talk to Bulla.”

Talk? About what? I didn’t want to talk.

Trunks nodded vaguely, eyes flickering up and down to make sure I was still in one piece. He didn’t smile reassuringly or anything like that but he left as he was told. When the door shut, Gohan ran a hand through his hair and took off his glasses to rub his eyes. Everything was a mess right now. None of them know what to say. There was nothing they could say.

It was just as hard for Gohan as everyone else. Pan was my age. He was imagining it in his head: someone he trusted, maybe my father, kidnapping her and forcing her to do things she didn’t want to. He didn’t want to look at me. It just reinforced the nightmare.

“Bulla,” Gohan said, “tell me what happened.”

My eyes dropped to my feet. Goku’s shirt barely covered my knees. Gohan sat on the bed and patted the spot next to him, leaning forward a bit when I unsurely sat down. Normally he would’ve touched my back or my knee; something to tell me he wasn’t an enemy. But I had learned that even the simplest touch could mean darker intentions were buried deeper than the eye could see.

“I know it’s hard to talk about, but I really need to know. We can’t help you if you don’t say anything. You don’t have to be embarrassed or afraid. Even a vague summary will help me help you. Can you tell me when this all started happening? Was it before or after Chi-Chi passed away?”

Something else was nagging me. They mentioned Goku had brought home a girl before. I wanted to know who she was and why she did it. She must have been the one Chi-Chi was talking about.

“Who was the other girl?” I asked. My voice was raw from misuse.

Gohan blinked. “It was nothing really. Well, I thought it was a mistake but I guess this is a pattern with dad.”

“What happened?”

“You know how Goku is. He has the mind of a child and always will. If he sees something he likes, he’ll take it. It’s been getting worse and worse over the years until it plateaued into him kidnapping a girl from your high school. It was while ago, when you were still… tiny. He kept her here for weeks before we realized what was going on. We had to make a wish for her to forget all of it.”

“So when my father kept talking about Goku making passes at me, you didn’t think there was a shred of truth in it?”

“We all thought he considered you off-limits.” Gohan gently touched my hand and looked into my eyes, but I was glaring at the floor. “I’m very sorry, Bulla. We were all too concerned with tackling how we felt about my mother passing away so suddenly. I wish you had been able to tell one of us.”

No, Goku didn’t see me as restricted. I was the perfect target. 

The entire house suddenly shook and Gohan quickly led me upstairs in the chance the whole thing caved in. We went outside to see most of the forest around the house had been destroyed and light kept flashing in different spots in the sky. I’d seen enough fights to know what it was. They were moving too fast for our eyes to keep up.

There was a break in the flashing and Goku flew out of the sky, carving a huge crater in the ground that propelled him along for a few yards. He wiped blood from the corner of his mouth as my father landed heavily near Gohan and I, panting and gripping his left arm. He glanced at me and scowled.

“Where’s Trunks?” Gohan asked.

Dad jerked his head in the direction of the collapsed trees. My brother was passed out in the rubble, glasses smashed and resting a few feet away. He must have been alive or dad would have been even angrier. Goku pulled himself out of the crater and grinned widely at my father, who promptly powered up and started glowing gold.

“Aw, Vegeta, is this really worth wasting energy?” Goku asked. He was still sitting, leaning forward casually on his knees. Totally at ease and not out of breath. “Bulla’s in one piece. I don’t know what all of you are so mad about.”

“You kidnapped my daughter,” dad snarled, “and kept her in your filthy basement. I will kill you before the day is through, Kakarot.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

They met in a flurry of punches again, causing a sonic boom that almost knocked Gohan and I over. My chaperone finally realized my father was once again fighting a losing battle and joined the fray to help him. Someone was occasionally thrown out of the fight and had to readjust themselves before going back in. Every time I saw Goku emerge, he was smiling.

As I watched, it slowly dawned upon me that I personally needed to do something. Standing around watching the three of them beat the life out of one another was not helping.

I carefully and quietly left the scene, only taking flight when I was a good distance away. I knew what I had to do and I knew where to go. Mom was probably home already, curled up in bed waiting for the rest of her family to come back. Goten might have already started the trip back to fight his father.

My flying was a bit wobbly but I made it home. I made my way inside and tiptoed through the house, hoping they had left out what I needed. It wasn’t gonna be easy. Everything was about to change. But looking at the current circumstances, that change was a good thing.

A low hum drew me to them. They were resting in mom’s lab, glowing faintly on a white pillow. I couldn’t summon Shenron in the house or I’d end up killing both myself and my mother, so I took off the pillow cover and dropped the Dragon Balls inside. They had to be taken somewhere far away.

No one was there to stop me on my way back out. The power pulsating from the Dragon Balls seemed to propel me as I flew towards the wilderness, trying to avoid Mt. Paozu. You could still see and hear the battle: it was like lightning kept striking the ground. I didn’t want them to fight because of me. We were all happy before, close friends that couldn’t be torn apart.

It was all my fault for encouraging Goku. I was stupid.

Soon I found a roomy field that gave the dragon enough room to emerge from his dimension. I poured the Balls out of a spot of soft soil and cleared my throat. It was my first time summoning him. Dad said he could be kind of cranky sometimes. Maybe he’d be in a good mood this time.

“Arise, Shenron!” I called.

The sky immediately began to darken. It would be a red flag to everyone that the Dragon Balls were being used, but I was the summoner and Shenron would only listen to me. The Balls began to glow more brightly until they exploded into neon orange light that bathed the meadow in sunset hues. Shenron spiraled out of the portal and roared into the sky, settling in a curled position way above the trees.

“What is your final wish?” he asked. His voice resonated off the mountain.

“Bulla, stop!”

I turned to see Goku, Gohan, and my father standing a few feet away. Where did they come from? Gohan was supporting my father, who looked like he was passed out. Goku took a step forward and splayed his hands to look less threatening. They were all bleeding and covered in bruises.

“What are you doing?” Goku asked.

“I want everything to be normal again. I don’t want any more fighting.”

“Making a wish won’t solve anything,” Gohan said. “We need you to come home and tell us what happened. We can fix this.”

Goku shot his son a dirty look. “Bulla isn’t going anywhere. She’s staying with me.”

It was never gonna end.

Shenron focused intently on me when I was facing him again. He looked a bit tired. Granting so many wishes had to be exhausting, even if you were eternal and immortal. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to steady myself. This was it. The clock was about to turn back.

“I want to go back in time,” I said. “Turn everything back to the day Chi-Chi died. I don’t know if you can erase timelines but this one is doing nothing but hurting a lot of people. I know I can make things right if you can give me a second chance, Shenron.”

“No!” Goku shouted.

The dragon glanced at him and back at me. “History is very likely to repeat itself, small one. It is within my power to turn time but I cannot guarantee you will be pleased with its outcome. Time is fickle. Are you willing to risk this future for the slim possibility of a better one?”

We were all going to be erased and rewritten. Time itself was going to bend over backwards for me. I nodded firmly and Shenron’s red eyes glowed brighter. As I felt my consciousness slipping, someone hugged me tightly from behind. It was warm and familiar.

“I will always protect you.”

The voice could’ve been anyone’s. I was rapidly slipping out of my body, rewinding through time to the turning point in my life. The person fell away and I did, too, into an abyss where my soul waited to be injected into a new body. A body that hadn’t been violated. A body with a new beginning.


	17. Redux

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the second half of the story, another 15 chapters or so. The sequel is 10 chapters and I'll be posting that after this. :)

My heart started beating again.

I flew up in bed to the sound of my alarm, eyes wild with fear. It continued to beep until I slapped a hand on the snooze button, accidentally smashing it in the process. My whole body was trembling. I tugged up the sleeves of my pajamas to see my arms were not bruised at all. Nothing felt weird or painful between my legs, either. Everything was back to normal.

Well, for the most part. Chi-Chi was doomed to die in less than twelve hours. I hopped out of bed to examine myself in the mirror and considered trying to stop her heart attack from ever happening. Maybe if I kept her awake and near a hospital they could save her before it was too late.

That would be the best solution. Goku would still have his wife and I wouldn’t have to worry about fighting him off anymore. I’d make sure I kept a close eye on him from as great a distance as possible. I definitely didn’t want him looking for other girls in place of me. That was always a possibility. 

I scowled at my reflection. No, jealousy was not an option. Chi-Chi deserved to live and be happy with her husband. The world was my oyster yet again and I had nothing holding me back from doing what I wanted. Right now, everyone was perfect. We were all friends, no one was fighting and best of all, I didn’t have Goku sneaking in my bedroom at night.

Mom and dad were sitting at the kitchen table downstairs, sipping coffee and studying their newspapers. They both looked normal. My mother glanced up and clapped her hands together but before she could mention my birthday, I locked her in a tight embrace. She laughed and hugged me back while dad buried his face further into the paper, trying to look uninterested.

“Someone’s an excited birthday girl,” mom said. “We’re going to set up the decorations and snacks for your party later. Any last-minute requests?”

I shook my head. I was so happy I could cry.

Daddy recoiled when I left mom to hug him snugly around the neck and gruffly muttered “happy birthday” when I backed off. My cell phone was still upstairs. I wasn’t going to use it at the table anymore. My family was far too important; they cared about me more than I had realized. I was always taking their love for granted.

Yes, this time around I wouldn’t let it slip through my fingers. I was going to be open with my parents. From now on, I would try hard in school, do all my chores, and never, ever get involved with a guy. Well, not until I was out of high school. Shenron had given me a second chance.

The doorbell rang. Mom hurried over to get it and I eagerly ate the breakfast she made special for me: scrambled eggs and bacon with chocolate chip waffles. My Saiyan side was more than happy to indulge in the food and dad watched curiously as I wolfed it all down. I usually ignored me hunger but I wasn’t going to do that anymore. I was going to—

“Chi-Chi, what a surprise!”

My father and I both turned at once to see Chi-Chi standing in the doorway with my nightmare standing behind her. He was standing tall and proud, no longer sheepish as he had been after his wife passed away. It was a new addition to my future but I didn’t mind too much. The Goku I was seeing technically wasn’t bad yet so I had no reason to be afraid of him.

“I should probably get ready for school,” I said.

“You argued with your mother about it for an hour last night.” Dad turned the page of his paper. “We’re allowing you to stay home this once, but don’t go believing it’s going to happen again.”

Huh. Another shift in time.

Chi-Chi came into the kitchen, smiling tightly at me. She was never really a fan. I rose from my chair and hugged her briefly while trying not to make eye contact with her husband. She handed me a small box wrapped in red paper and nodded encouragingly for me to open it. It was concealing a smaller black box, which I popped open to see what was inside.

A necklace with a small heart dangling on the chain was glittering in the early morning light. My throat constricted painfully as I lifted it from the box and clasped it behind my neck. It was like getting punched in the stomach over and over again. I couldn’t believe it.

“Thank you very much,” I said.

“You’re welcome,” Chi-Chi said. “Goku and I were out shopping the other day and he thought you might like it. I’m happy you do, Bulla.”

“Wow, Goku at the mall? That’s something I never thought I’d see.” Mom sat back down next to dad and grinned at her childhood friend.

“Oh, he’s been a peach lately,” Chi-Chi replied. There was an edge to her voice. “He’s going to be training for the weekend on his own so I’ll be all by myself. This was just his way of sucking up to make sure I keep his stomach full.”

Goku laughed nervously. “Aw, come on, Chi. I’m trying to be nice.”

My spine prickled. I promptly excused myself to go upstairs and start getting ready for the day. None of them seemed surprised by my leaving but the Sons remained to talk with my parents. When I was in my bedroom, I slammed the door shut and began gnawing on my fingernails.

Was history repeating itself? Luckily I had my memories so I knew what I was getting myself into. But that didn’t guarantee Goku would be nice to me. Even if I turned him down or Chi-Chi lived, he still had the capacity to be evil. I hoped his wife could curb his impulses like she did before.

I put on clothes and went to the bathroom to wash up and brush my teeth. Things would turn out just fine if I paid attention this time around. When I was done I grabbed my cell phone to text Shoppa and lounged in my room, waiting for the Son family to leave. I had to make sure I was nice to Pan, too.

They didn’t leave for a while and I was forced to go back downstairs or risk looking rude. The necklace felt especially cold on my skin. I sidled out to the living room and plopped down in front of the TV while the adults talked about boring things, like the education system and how Satan City was going down the tubes since Hercule retired. I flipped through the channels rapidly.

“Bulla? Are you listening?”

I turned at the sound of my mother’s voice to see all of them looking at me, including dad. Again I avoided Goku’s eyes to look straight at mom’s. “Uh, no.”

“I’m going to be baking cookies all afternoon,” Chi-Chi said. “It would be nice if you could stop down around seven to pick them up.”

“Sure, no problem.”

“Be quick about it or Goku will eat them all.”

“Chi,” Goku said, “I wouldn’t eat Bulla’s birthday cookies.”

Everyone went back to talking and I politely excused myself to go outside. What I needed was a walk. A nice, long walk in the city, as far away from the woods as possible. Goku hated the city so he wouldn’t follow me there. He wasn’t really frightening me at all but I didn’t want to take any chances. Last time I let my guard down and it got me into a huge mess.

Satan City was bright and busy. I strolled through the streets with my wallet clutched in hand, looking to see if anything struck my fancy. My parents were being awfully lenient, letting me walk around the city all by myself and skip school. It was one heck of a birthday.

I made my way into a jewelry store and was deciding between two silver rings when someone suddenly hugged me fiercely from behind. I whirled around and the hugger stepped backed, laughing at my reaction. Goten threw his arm around Valese’s shoulders when she was beside him. A smile spread across my face. At least some things hadn’t changed.

“You’re jumpy,” Valese said. “And playing hooky.”

“It’s her big birthday,” Goten said.

“Now I can officially drive and get a job. Life is great. Are you guys coming to my party later?”

Valese nodded. “Of course! Goten was going to get me from school but I decided to skip. I’m fed up with classes at this point.”

We talked for a while about school. I was ecstatic that I was doing so well in the new past. Goku wasn’t weird, Chi-Chi may be able to live, and all my friends and family were accounted for. Valese and Goten left after he talked quietly with the jeweler about an order he placed. When they turned to leave, Goten winked at me and gestured at his ring finger.

Shoppa met up with me at a café for lunch. She was the same, wearing a green dress and heels. Her car keys jangled off her purse. 

“Hellooooo birthday girl!” she squealed, hugging me around the neck.

I laughed and embraced her. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Um, hello, it’s your sixteenth birthday. Lunch is on me, by the way. Daddy got a raise at work and my allowance got a raise, too.”

We ate our lunch and talked about my party, including who I was inviting. She convinced me to invite a guy she was interested in and I told her I was going to let Pan come down. Pan was still weird, even in an alternate timeline. The conversation turned to Goten and Valese and their upcoming engagement. Luckily our senior friend was kind of dense and didn’t know what her boyfriend was planning.

The day wore on and Shoppa and I headed back to my house to get ready for the party. When we arrived, Trunks was already there with dad helping him hang decorations. Mom glanced at us and smiled as she stacked mini deli sandwiches on a platter. Normally I would’ve complained about her not ordering out but I was intent on doing things right.

“Well hello, Shoppa!” mom said.

“Hi Mrs. Briefs! Everything looks great!”

I rolled my eyes. Yep, Shoppa was still a suck up. Just like Goku.

My mother’s smiled grew and she shrugged. “Oh, most of that was Vegeta and Trunks. They help me out if I ask nicely.”

“If by ‘nicely’ you mean threateningly, then yes,” Trunks grumbled.

“Be quiet!” dad barked.

“Thank you, sweetie,” mom said. “Bulla, you should probably head over to Chi-Chi’s to get those cookies. Goku’s long gone now so she shouldn’t be in a bad mood.”

It was the trip I had been dreading all day. What if I got there and Chi-Chi was already dead? What if I saw Goku kill her? What if Goku was the only one there? But I had no other choice. It was the pivotal moment for my future; the one event everything depended on. I left the house with a heavy heart. 

It was time to confront my new fate.


	18. 1

The sun was sinking in the sky as I flew to the Son house. It was early fall once again so I wasn’t terribly cold, but I didn’t have a lot of light to finish my errand. I skimmed the tree tops when I was closer to Mt. Paozu to avoid the prying eyes of people out for a brisk nighttime walk. The last thing I needed was someone saying they saw me flying around.

I really hoped Chi-Chi was alright. That would make everything even easier than I imagined. Of course I didn’t want her to die or anything. I scowled when the smoke from their house came into view. Once again I was only thinking of myself instead of other people. I needed to stop doing that.

The woods were eerily silent when I landed outside their door. As far as I could tell, Goku wasn’t around. He wasn’t exactly quiet. I heaved a sigh and knocked a few times to get Chi-Chi’s attention. A few minutes passed. A tight, cold feeling tugged on my stomach and I called her name once or twice.

“This is all part of the past,” I said, turning the handle to let myself inside. “It was destined to happen. Goku is probably sleeping next to her and he’ll wake up and notice in an hour.”

Was it wrong of me to not try preventing her death? It had to be inevitable. If she didn’t die tonight, she could the next night or the night after. Besides, it wasn’t my responsibility to set everything straight. All I was doing was making sure nothing happened between Goku and me. 

It was equally as still and silent inside the house. I shut the door quietly and tip-toed to the kitchen, where a few plates of cookies wrapped in tinfoil were waiting on the table. All the lights were off. I made my way upstairs, grimacing when the floorboards creaked. It was so quiet I could hear my heart beating in my ears. All I wanted to do was see what happened to Chi-Chi.

The bedroom door was slightly ajar. My ears were more sensitive than a normal person’s but I still couldn’t pick up even a hint of breathing. I carefully nudged open the door and peered inside.

There was no one there. I walked in and wandered around the room for a few minutes, checking to make sure Chi-Chi’s body wasn’t hidden somewhere. Where could she have gone? Maybe she died in the basement instead this time. As I scratched my head curiously, I felt a warm hand clap on my shoulder and squeeze gently.

When I spun around, my left foot came up to land a swift kick to the stranger’s face. But they easily deflected the blow and I toppled over on the floor after quickly losing my balance. I rubbed my behind as the person laughed and offered me their hand.

“You’re a little too slow,” Chi-Chi said.

She helped me to my feet and dusted off my shirt before leading me back downstairs. I was relieved she was the only one home instead of her husband. There was no way I’d let myself be in a dark, silent house with Goku ever again.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, “but I was worried something was wrong. You didn’t answer the door.”

“Oh I was just falling asleep in the basement. I finally convinced Goku to buy a TV but he doesn’t want it upstairs.” Chi-Chi rolled her eyes as she packed the cookies in a big bag. “Thank you for inviting Pan, by the way. She’s so happy to be included with the other kids.”

“No problem at all, Mrs. Son. I think she’ll be really happy when she gets to know some of my friends. It’s good for her to meet other kids instead of hanging out at home all the time.”

“Just keep an eye on her and make sure she doesn’t do anything foolish. You know, I was wondering if you could run an errand for me on the way home. Just stop off somewhere to check something for me. I promise it won’t keep you from your party for very long, if at all.”

There was coldness in her tone that I found… unsettling. I heaved the cookies into my arms and nodded quickly, only intending on going to said place if it would take five minutes or less. Chi-Chi smiled tightly at me and placed a small slip of paper on top of the pile along with a sealed envelope.

“Just go to that address and deliver the letter,” she said. “But please be careful. We wouldn’t want anything happening to the birthday girl now would we?”

I awkwardly thanked her for the treats and left. Chi-Chi stared at me with her eerie plastic smile.  
After I was a good distance away I landed to open the piece of paper. There was an address scribbled on it hastily and some wet spots blurred it a bit. It looked to be a place in Satan City so I stashed the cookies in a capsule mom loaned me and walked the rest of the way towards town. Technology was great. Maybe Chi-Chi could get a GPS next.

The streets were black. I wasn’t afraid of much—even bullets didn’t pose a risk to me. My reflexes and senses were keen enough to tell me when someone was going to attack me and I could easily overpower a human man. If you got them in groups and I was too afraid, that was a different story.

My eyes scanned the paper for any clues as to where I was going and who I was delivering mail to. Why was I even helping her out? She couldn’t stand me. I was tempted to tear open the envelope and see what Chi-Chi needed to be so secretive about. At least she was still alive.

The paper brought me to the front door of a seedy motel I had no interest in entering. I squinted at the address to make sure I was at the right place and hesitantly walked inside to see the front clerk taking a snooze. His green hat was askew, hiding his face. The whole place smelled like mold and it was terribly hot, like an infested sauna. I plugged my nose and took the elevator.

Room 43. I made my way down the hallway until I found the room in question. My gut was telling me to turn back; to leave and forget Chi-Chi ever asked me to go. I swallowed my fear and knocked twice on the door. Please don’t dangerous, please don’t be dangerous, please don’t—

The door swung open and I was once again confronted by the source of my problems. Goku was just wearing pajama pants, characteristically unashamed of his nude chest. He leaned against the doorframe and smiled at me while I hastily handed him the letter. This was worse than I thought. I didn’t want to be within a five mile radius of him.

“Hiya!” he said. “What’re you doing here so late? Want to come in?”

“Uh… no. Chi-Chi wanted me to give this to you before I headed home for my party. I thought you were out training for the weekend?”

Goku’s smile faded. “Chi-Chi asked you to bring this to me? How did she know where I was?”

“I’m more curious to know why you’re even—you know what, I actually don’t want to know. Enjoy whatever it is you’re doing and I hopefully won’t see you later.”

Before I could leave, Goku was tearing open the letter in a rush. His eyes flickered down the page quickly and his expression hardened over the more he read. It had to be something bad. I was about to politely excuse myself again when he suddenly thrust the letter in my hands and spun around to go back in his room. While he grabbed his shirt, I read the first few lines.

_Dearest husband,_

_I hope you’re enjoying your stay in the hotel. You’re going to have a huge mess to clean up when you come home and I won’t be around to help you. Maybe one of your friends can help out. I know you’ve had both eyes set on a certain girl for a while now…_

The letter was torn out of my hands and ripped to pieces. Goku grabbed my wrist and placed two fingertips to his forehead, immediately teleporting us out of the motel. We arrived in front of his quiet house in the woods and he rushed inside. I followed quickly, wondering what was making him so upset. She must have mentioned something else. From what I could tell, she was just—

Oh.

Oh no.

“Chi-Chi!” Goku called. “Chi, where are you? I want to talk to you.”

No reply. Goku checked the kitchen and we went down to the basement to make sure she wasn’t there, either. My chest felt tight as we ran upstairs to the second floor. I could hear something creaking quietly in their bedroom. Maybe she was sitting in the rocking chair, knitting or sewing.

When we stepped in the bedroom together, I could see a body swaying gently from the rafters.

Goku collapsed to his knees and screamed. I covered my eyes and looked away at the floor as nausea gurgled in my stomach. It was Chi-Chi. I could tell by the dress hanging around her lifeless body. It took a while for the puzzle to piece together in my head but now I understood. What she had me deliver to Goku was a suicide letter.

The Saiyan sobbed, clutching his head with both hands and staring at his wife’s corpse. There was no hope for us to take her down and resuscitate her. Chi-Chi had left the world in an even more violent way than she did before. She willingly took her own life.

And I was forcing Goku to relive his agony all over again.

I sank to the floor and hid my face as he finally gained the motivation to get up. There was a soft thump as Chi-Chi’s body fell into Goku’s huge arms. He broke down into tears again and set her on the bed. How was he going to explain it to everyone? How was I going to explain it to everyone?

When I fainted, the memories from my past life slipped away.


	19. 2

_The room was dark. Lightning flashed outside, illuminating the room for moments at a time. I covered my head and cowered in the corner as shuffling footsteps came closer and closer to my closed bedroom door. Rain pounded on the windows and the wind howled against the panes, trying to smash them in. I stared in wide-eyed fear as the handle of my door turned._

_It swung open, revealing a tall person standing in the shadows. My eyes slowly moved up her dress until they found her neck, snapped at a ninety degree angle. The rope was still tied tightly around her throat. A grim smile spread across her face and she started toward me with both hands swaying at her sides. She could’ve been dancing._

_“You foul little girl,” she whispered. “It’s all your fault.”_

Someone held me down when I woke with a scream from my nightmare. More hands joined the first pair and they managed to keep me from flying out of bed. I couldn’t think. I could barely even breathe. When I settled down everyone stepped back but I could still sense them hanging close to my bed. They were worried I’d panic again and smash a hole through the ceiling.

“Bulla,” mom said. “Sweetheart, please calm down.”

Calm down?

She wanted me to calm down.

It was my goddamn birthday and all I could remember was seeing Chi-Chi’s dead body hanging from her ceiling. I clutched my head and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to erase the image. She killed herself. But why did she do it? And why was I there to see it? Did she hate me that much?

“If Kakarot’s wife hadn’t killed herself, I would gladly do the honors,” dad growled. 

“Vegeta, will you cool it?! Our daughter just had a very harrowing experience and all you care about is finding a neck to snap—”

There was some pressure on my bed. Trunks was sitting next to me, gently touching the top of my hand. He was wearing a Capsule Corp. jacket and tried to smile at me. Slowly I looked around the room and noticed Pan there, along with Shoppa and Valese. None of the other Sons were anywhere to be seen.

Pan was staring at the wall, holding her bandana taut between her hands.

Why did Chi-Chi commit suicide? What was going on? 

“Sis, are you feeling okay?” Trunks asked. “I don’t mean okay as in fine, but can you stay conscious?”

I nodded. If I worked hard at not imagining Chi-Chi swinging from the rafters, I’d be okay.

Trunks looked into my eyes. “Can you tell me what happened? Goku is a wreck. We can’t get a straight sentence out of him. We’re depending on you to tell us how the two of you ended up finding her.”

“I… I went there to get the cookies,” I stammered.

“That was at seven. Goku brought you here around nine. Do you have any ideas? We thought he was going away for the weekend. Maybe you ran into him on your way over to the house?” My brother was throwing suggestions at me. Something told me he didn’t want the truth.

“Yes,” I said as if it was dawning upon me. “He was walking through the woods. I didn’t feel like flying so I was, too. We ran into each other and he offered to use instant transmission. We got there and… she was in the bedroom. Goku started screaming and I think I passed out.”

It was a good enough alibi for them. Trunks patted my hand and rose from the bed. Mom leaned over to kiss my forehead and dad tucked the sheets closer to my neck. Pan didn’t move until a visibly shaken Valese physically pushed her from the room. Only Shoppa stayed behind.

Neither of us spoke for a few moments. She hesitated, then sat next to me on the bed like my brother had. I immediately sat up and hugged her fiercely; we both started crying soon after that. When she pulled away and told me to rest, I really wanted to tell her that sleeping was the last thing I needed. She shut the door gently behind her.

There was a big gap in my memory that was painfully blank. All I remembered was seeing Chi-Chi. I didn’t know how I met up with Goku and I didn’t know why she decided to kill herself. But no one would expect me to know something like that. I grabbed my cell phone off the nightstand and checked my texts for anything that would give me a clue. I hadn’t talked to anyone all day.

Only Goku knew what happened and he was currently having a mental breakdown. 

Voices from downstairs drifted up to my bedroom. I could hear a lot of crying. They didn’t want to involve me in their conversations. I had been on the front lines; I had to see her lifeless body. As I sank down further into my sheets, hoping to vanish, someone knocked meekly on the door.

“Come in,” I said.

A mess of black hair poked in first followed by Goku’s puffy black eyes. He smiled at me but didn’t move from the doorway. I couldn’t smile back.

“Hi,” he said. “Your mom wanted me to come see how you were doing. They’re all talking and I… don’t want to listen.”

“Ugh, don’t tell me they’re all crying. I hate crying.”

“I’m pretty sick of it, too.” He twiddled his thumbs nervously.

“I said you can come in. You don’t have to stand by the door like a sentry.”

Goku entered and sat at the foot of my bed. He looked like he was gonna start crying again at any second. Honestly, I barely knew Chi-Chi. I had no reason to cry. But walking in on her committing suicide was bound to haunt me for the rest of my life.

It had been a long time since I last saw Goku, too. Actually, I hadn’t seen anyone in the Son family besides Pan in forever. They were all having a crying fest in my kitchen. I folded my arms over my chest and glared furiously at the TV. What the hell was wrong with Chi-Chi? Why would she do that to her family? Goku was an idiot but he was head over heels for her. She had two sons, a granddaughter…

“Your mother told me you don’t really remember what happened,” Goku said.

“Not really, but I bet you can clear it up for me. All I know is we both found Chi-Chi.”

“Well you were right. I ran into you in the woods and brought you there. You were passed out for a long time because I was too busy panicking. I guess you knew subconsciously.”

“So your wife just decided to kill herself for no reason?” I pressed. “That doesn’t seem like her.”

Goku was growing more and more uncomfortable. He shifted. “Look, I don’t really want to talk about it. Maybe I can in a couple of months.”

I narrowed my eyes suspiciously and leaned back to turn on the TV. It was weird, but I felt déjà vu as the cartoon flickered across the screen. Had I done it before? Goku left his spot on the bed to crawl beside me and I thought nothing of it. It was Goku. Any one of the Son boys wasn’t creepy in the least, especially their father. Besides, we had both seen the same horrifying thing.

There was a sense of kinship between us now. I wondered if it would ever go away.

“You know, I made a bad mistake a long time ago,” Goku said suddenly. “I… I think Chi-Chi was obsessing over it ever since then. I think that’s what drove her to suicide.”

“Okay,” I said, barely listening.

“But it’s done and over with. I’m much better at controlling myself and I promised her it would never happen again. I really loved her, you know.”

“Sure.”

“I loved her more than anything.”

“I bet she loved you, too.”

Goku’s hands clenched into fists. “Then why would she do this to me? Why would she leave me even after I apologized again and again and tried to make it right? It’s not like she walked out the door. She took her own life just to get away from me. Shenron can’t call her soul back.”

The déjà vu was back with a vengeance. I ignored it. Goku was upset and he had good reason to be. Chi-Chi had been violently taken from him. Unfortunately, I had no answers for him. I shrugged in response to his rhetorical questions and prayed we could change the subject. Death wasn’t supposed to exist to any of the people I knew.

“I don’t know why you’re talking to me,” I said. “Ask my father or something. He knows all kinds of crap about depressing things like dying.”

“You’re right. Sometimes I forget how young you are.”

Was I being mean? The guy’s wife killed herself. I could suck it up and act nice for an hour or two. It wasn’t like anyone else could really bounce thoughts back to him, anyway. I sighed and turned off the TV to face Goku, patting him on the arm. He bit his lower lip.

“You can talk, but I can’t promise I’ll get it,” I said.

Goku smiled and wiped his eyes. “Y’know, I think you’re nice, Bulla.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m a bucket of sunshine. Talk until all the sad stuff downstairs is done.”

And he did just that. It wasn’t that hard to sit there and act interested. I leaned against my pillow and was continually surprised by the emotion Goku showed. Our families had grown apart over the years and I didn’t know him that well. All dad told me was that he was ridiculously overpowered and stupid. But he seemed like a regular guy to me. He was pleasant.

My eyelids began to droop as the night wore on. Everyone was still downstairs. Goku and I were alone in our own separate realm of pain. We had seen the worst of it and couldn’t bring ourselves to speak with our loved ones about it. But if I had anyone on my side, I definitely wanted it to be the strongest being in the entire universe. I yawned profusely and Goku grinned, pausing mid-sentence.

“Sleepy?” he asked.

“Nope. Carry on.”

“You can go to sleep, Bulla. I’m not gonna keep you up all night. Besides, both of us need to get some rest or we’ll go crazy.”

Now he was really smiling. I raised an eyebrow and crept under my sheets. What was he so happy about? He should’ve been crying at least a little more than he was. For God’s sake, we both saw his wife hanging from his bedroom ceiling. Maybe he didn’t see the point in dwelling on it. Mom said Goku didn’t even cry when Gohan died fighting Majin Buu. 

When I was nestled in bed, he finally rose and made his way back out of my bedroom. At the door, he turned briefly to gaze at me.

“I will always protect you.”

Then he was gone.


	20. 3

The few days before the funeral were agonizingly long. I hung around in my bedroom eating dry cereal by the fistful while mom cried on the phone with Videl, who was afraid to leave Gohan by himself. Apparently Pan wasn’t doing so hot, either—she refused to leave her room and hadn’t eaten anything since the night of my birthday. They were falling apart at the seams.

Dad spent most of his time training in the gravity chamber like he always did when he was upset. He acted like he was mad at Chi-Chi but I knew it hit him where it hurt. She was still a big part of our ‘group’ and losing her meant Goku would never quite be the same again. Whether or not dad wanted to admit it, he had a unique friendship with Goku and felt at least a bit sorry for him.

It was impossible to sleep. I kept seeing Chi-Chi in my head and I’d wake up in a cold sweat if I tried closing my eyes. Mom offered to bring me to therapy so I could come to terms with what I had seen but I really didn’t want word getting out that I was seeing a shrink. Dad insisted it would pass.

In spite of the horrible thing I had seen, I still didn’t cry. It wasn’t in my nature. I’d prefer to keep it all inside and have everything go back to normal instead of blubbering in front of everyone. I ignored the calls and texts from my friends and waited impatiently for the whole ordeal to be overwith. When Chi-Chi was buried in the ground I could finally be at peace.

The night before the funeral, the Son family came over to visit. 

They all looked like hell. Valese had her arm around Goten and almost seemed to be supporting him as they walked in the front door. She nodded at me as she led her future fiancé to the living room so he could sit down. If it were possible, Gohan looked even worse than his brother. He left his glasses at home and stumbled when he came inside, staring blankly at the wall as Videl rubbed his back.

It was one of the first times where the women were stronger. Pan had lost her shell-shocked expression and helped her mother lead Gohan out the living room as well, where both of them rested their heads on either of his arms. He closed his eyes and hung his head. Goten buried his face in Valese’s neck.

Death wasn’t something new to any of us, but suicide was an entirely different matter. Chi-Chi had made the conscious decision to end her own life and no one knew exactly why. She was gone forever: the Dragon Balls couldn’t revive an unwilling soul, Goku couldn’t visit her spirit floating aimlessly in Otherworld, and Porunga would likewise be unable to help us.

There was a pervasive feeling of helplessness and betrayal that made it hard not to cry. But I still couldn’t bear seeing their puffy, red eyes and swollen cheeks. We were supposed to be happy. 

Mom passed around tea to everyone. I glanced over my shoulder, expecting Goku to come shuffling through the front door next. He should have been the most depressed out of all of them. If he was too busy screwing around with pterodactyls…

“Bulla,” Videl said, wiping her eyes, “Goku is going to take you and Pan to our house for the night. We know this is hard and we don’t want any of you to keep seeing us like this.”

“This is definitely not Goku’s field of expertise,” mom said.

“He’s too optimistic,” dad said. He was standing in a corner with his arms crossed.

I was more than happy to leave. “Fine with me.”

“Dad, I don’t want to go,” Pan said. “What if something happens while I’m gone? I don’t want to lose you and mom, too.”

Gohan suddenly turned to fiercely hug his daughter, making her burst into tears and hide her face in his chest. Videl covered her eyes and I took an involuntary step back. If Pan was gonna cry all night then I didn’t want her to come along, anyway. But Gohan let her go and wiped the tears from her eyes with his thumb, smiling ever so slightly. Pan’s lower lip trembled.

“Go,” he said. “I will never leave you, Pan.”

We took our leave, heading out into the cool autumn night. Pan was sniffling so I awkwardly patted her shoulder to comfort her, which immediately turned into a full-body hug. Goku appeared in front of us a few moments later and relieved me of my duty, scooping up his granddaughter like she weighed nothing. He supported her with one arm and teleported us away with the other.

Gohan and Videl had a house that rivaled my own. It was spacious and well-decorated, mostly because Videl spent her days at home keeping the place in tip-top shape. Goku carried Pan upstairs and all I could hear was her sobbing until he shut her bedroom door. I rubbed my arms awkwardly and sat in their living room to watch TV. Pan needed someone to talk to and I didn’t want to interrupt.

An hour or so passed. The stairs creaked and Goku was sitting beside me, resting his feet on the coffee table with his big arms around the back of the couch. I smiled slightly at him and he smiled back. He was kind of teary eyed but it didn’t look like he was going to cry again. At least someone had a grip.

“Pan doesn’t understand. I think she’s sheltered too much.” Goku watched the flickering television that illuminated his eyes in the darkness. “Gohan’s a worrier just like his mother was and he’s going to protect her too much.”

I shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t get it, either. Chi-Chi was her grandmother so you can’t expect her to be fine with it. You can’t expect any of them to be fine with it. Then again, she was your wife and I haven’t seen you shed a tear since right before our chat a few days ago.”

“I’ve spent a lot of time crying, believe it or not. I’m hoping there won’t be a lot of tears from now on, as long as I’m careful and don’t rush things too much. I have to have some self-control.”

“Whatever you say. You might want to turn on the waterworks when your family is around or they’re gonna think you’re a raging psychopath. I mean, I know you aren’t but they’re all emotional right now so they won’t be able to see as clearly.”

“I know how they are,” Goku said. His eyes were riveted on the TV now and he was smiling. “Some people are harder to understand, y’know? You have to work with them for a long time to open up the lines of communication. If you aren’t careful, they panic and shut you out.”

I rolled my eyes. “You mean my dad, right? Tell me about it. It’s like he’s from a different planet. Well… technically he is but still. I’ve been working on that puzzle for sixteen years and none of the pieces want to fit together.”

“Yeah… Vegeta. That’s who I meant.”

“And you know, he’s such an aloof jerk all the time that I don’t even know how to talk to him. He’s always training or standing in a corner and if I open my mouth he wants to stuff money in it to get me to shut up. I only go shopping because they don’t give me any other choice. I’d rather spend the day with him like how you spend so much time with Pan.”

Goku’s wide, innocent eyes turned to mine and I quickly covered my mouth with both hands. What was I doing?! Was I complaining about my feelings to him? That was dumb of me. He didn’t care about a teenage girl’s daddy problems, especially when she was related to his rival.

“Aw, you can talk to me,” he said. “I like listening and I know Vegeta even better than your mother does. Besides, you listened to me for a long time last night. I want to return the favor.”

“No, it’s okay. I don’t want to intrude.”

“Do you want some tea? It might help you relax.” Goku sat up and looked around with his hand shading his eyes. “Videl makes her own and sent Chi and I a few gallons of it every week. I usually just drank it for dinner, though. Come on, we can go in the kitchen and have homemade tea and talk.”

It was tempting. Goku knew how dad was after beating the hell out of him a few times and Shoppa wasn’t good at dealing with emotional things. I shrugged and rose from the couch to follow Goku into the kitchen, where he rummaged through a few cabinets before finding the tea. The linoleum was cool on my feet and the rest of me shivered. Before I could blink, a warm blanket was wrapped around me.

I laughed and Goku’s eyes brightened. “You’d make a good bodyguard.”

“I’m hoping so. Do you want anything to eat?”

“Tea is fine.” I hopped in one of the tall chairs and pulled the blanket tighter around myself. “Are you staying here for the night or going home?”

“I’m gonna knock that house down and build a new one. I’ll never be able to sleep in it again so there’s no point in keeping it around. But I’ll probably stay here for the next few weeks until everything’s said and done. Pan said she’ll help me decorate and paint.”

“That sounds fun. You should ask Trunks to help you design it. He’s good at that stuff.”

The tea was hissing for attention a few minutes later and I felt better having something warm in my stomach. Goku sat across from me and folded his hands on the table, waiting politely for me to pick up where I left off whining about my father. He was so nice, like a father I never really had. Dad was there but at the same time, he wasn’t. 

I went on and on for a long time, just like Goku had when we talked before. After a while my back started hurting from sitting in the chair and we went back out to the living room. I cried a bit but I swallowed most of my tears before they could embarrass me. 

“Uh oh,” Goku said when I yawned, “you look sleepy again. Am I that boring?”

“No, but listening to myself whining for so long makes me pretty tired.”

“Being a teenager isn’t easy. I’m really glad you could talk to me, Bulla. It means a lot.”

The image of him leaving my room saying, “I will always protect you” suddenly sprang into my mind. I didn’t want to mention it. I was so exhausted at that point that I doubted it even happened. Maybe it just came across as a quick snippet of a dream I had before I fell asleep.

Goku really was selfless. I hoped I could be like him one day.

“Can I tell you a secret?” I asked.

The Saiyan leaned closer, eyes glittering. “Of course you can.”

“I’m… I’m not really that upset about Chi-Chi. She was great but I didn’t know her so it’s weird being around everyone crying. Does that make me a bad person?”

“No and you shouldn’t think that way. It’s harder for us because we knew her so well. You’re just surprised when death happens so suddenly. But no, I don’t think you’re a bad person.”

“I guess you’re right. Would you mind bringing me home?”

“No problem. Just grab my arm and I’ll have you in your bedroom in a flash.”

He was as quick as he promised. I was happy to be back home and shuffled over to my dresser to pick out pjs while Goku waited patiently on my bed. After I changed in my closet he pulled back the sheets and tucked them around my chin, making my bed into more of a cocoon than anything else. One of his big hands rested on my shoulder as he smiled down at me.

“I’m always here if you need me, Bulla,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“No, thank you.”

Instead of teleporting out, he quietly left the room to go downstairs with the other adults. He shut my door gently and I was alone in my room. The necklace was still around my neck. It felt heavy.


	21. 4

We were all sitting quietly in the funeral parlor while Gohan choked on his speech.

Mom was leaning on dad, sobbing softly on his black suit he hated wearing. Trunks was sitting on the other side of dad with a stern look on his face, the same one every male in the room wore. All the women were weak now. I hid my face and tried my best to look sad.

There was no open casket so I wasn’t forced to see Chi-Chi’s dead body again. That was a relief. I waited uncomfortably for everyone to cry until they couldn’t squeeze out another tear. Gohan got a hold on himself and managed to whisper about how Chi-Chi was a great mother and wife. When I glanced up, Goku was holding his head in his hands and staring at the floor.

The whole place smelled like formaldehyde and potpourri. When we finally went outside I was happy to get some fresh air. Dad stood beside mom solemnly as she hugged Videl. Trunks kept his hands jammed in his pockets and stood stone still. He was a lot like his father in some pretty bad ways.

Soon we made our way over to Goku. I conjured up a sincere smile and he smiled back before my mother strangled him in a ferocious embrace. Dad nodded his head tersely and shook hands with the other two Son boys. Trunks clapped Goten on the shoulder and murmured something to him.

“Don’t hesitate to come by if you need anything,” mom said. “That stands for all of you. Vegeta can help you rebuild the house, Goku, and I’m sure Trunks and Bulla can help out. We’re going to keep her home from school for a few weeks so she can see someone to talk about what she saw.”

I scowled and turned my eyes to the ground. Why did she have to mention that in front of everyone? I didn’t need to see a shrink. I was over it and mom was making it worse trying to force me to go. That was the same kind of annoying stuff I was complaining to Goku about. She was always pushing me to do things I wasn’t interested in.

“Why doesn’t she go with Goku?” Videl suggested. “We’ve been telling him to go and it would make sense that they go together since they saw the same thing.”

“What a great idea!” mom said, beaming happily through her blotchy red face.

“I don’t need to go,” I said.

“Oh, come on. You get some time off school to relax and collect your thoughts and you get to go with Goku, who’s much easier to talk to than any of us stuffy adults.” Mom squeezed me from the side and kissed my forehead. “I’m going home to make an appointment right now. Why don’t you go over to Goku’s house with Pan and help him clean up?”

That was the last thing I wanted to do but the queen had spoken. They all left again, save for Pan and Goku. I felt even worse. Mom was just trying to get rid of me. She didn’t know how to talk to me about what I saw so she wanted someone else to deal with it. I folded my arms and Goku cocked his head as his granddaughter touched his shoulder to be carried along during instant transmission.

“Are you coming?” he asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“None of your business.”

Goku grinned. “Come on. You don’t have to do anything. Your mother isn’t gonna be happy if she finds out you were being difficult.”

“She’s passing me off on you,” I said. “Doesn’t that bother you? They’re making you a babysitter. Gohan and Videl are doing the same thing with Pan because they don’t want to deal with it.”

“No, I like watching you guys.” Goku scratched his head and looked down at Pan, whose eyebrows were furrowed together as she fit the puzzle together. “Gohan doesn’t want Pan to see him upset and your mother doesn’t know what to do, Bulla. Let’s give them some time to figure it out.”

It did nothing to convince me, but I still touched Goku’s arm so we could get out of the cold.  
The Son house was warm and quiet—Goku must have visited to do his own cleaning before the funeral. Pan drifted away to the basement and when the door shut, I found myself alone with Goku again. It didn’t bother me or anything but it was happening an awful lot lately. Hanging around him was better than being around my parents. They were so irritating.

We cleaned out the kitchen for a long time. I sorted pots and pans into cardboard boxes so they could be moved out when Goku and dad tore the house down. He didn’t want very much; just the essentials. We disconnected his appliances and set them in the living room to be taken out with everything else. I was fine with helping as long as I didn’t have to go to the bedroom again.

Goku left to check on Pan when the sun was starting to set and I sat on his couch to take a much deserved break. The more time I spent with him, the better I understood why everyone couldn’t help but like him. He was incredibly charismatic and knew when to mind his own business. His simplicity made him less of a worrier than most parents.

It was nice not being harassed. He was a good friend.

The couch suddenly shifted and Goku was sitting beside me. Our legs touched for a moment and I quickly put a few inches of space between us. His skin was so hot I could feel it through his jeans. He smelled like the aftershave dad used. Awkward.

“Sorry,” he said, smiling a bit. “Pan’s asleep.”

“What a slacker. Your granddaughter doesn’t have the same motivation you do.”

“So Pan is lazy now?”

“Well she didn’t help us clean and I never saw her last night. She’s been awfully quiet lately. I mean, I understand why but… it’s still weird.”

“Pan has a lot of things to think about right now.” Goku rubbed his forehead, looking strangely intense. “We all do. Anyway, how about we go for a walk? I have something for you but I can’t show it off in the house. I don’t want to make anyone jealous.”

What? A present for me? The thought of a gift blinded me completely. I grabbed Goku’s arm without thinking and pouted my lower lip. We’d been dragging heavy things around all day and I wanted to sit inside and relax instead of wandering around Mt. Paozu. The sad puppy face usually got me what I wanted when daddy tried to keep things from me.

The light stopped reflecting off Goku’s eyes. They looked bottomless.

“Please?” I whined. “I don’t wanna walk.”

“It’s either that or early bedtime. Your choice.”

It wasn’t a threat. He was joking; teasing me with something my parents tortured me with at home. They were always treating me like a kid while Goku saw me for what I was: a young adult. 

“Do you have it on you?” I asked.

“Sure do. It’s small, though. In a little black box.”

“Can I eat it?”

“I guess but I don’t think it’d taste too good.”

I crossed my arms. “You’re not making this any easier.”

Goku gestured at the door and I gave in to his ransom. None of my clothes were available so I piled on a few of his training shirts to keep myself warm outside. He wore a flimsy jacket and laughed at how ridiculous I looked. We went out into the darkening world and were soon enveloped in the trees as we headed up the steep slopes of Mt. Paozu.

Once again I was complaining. Mom and dad don’t care; they’re trying to get rid of me; they think I’m a spoiled brat; they won’t let me be a teenager. Goku was quiet. He knew how to play the game with girls, especially hormonal teenagers. The longer we walked, the happier I was.

We stopped in a meadow that felt oddly familiar. The moon shone brightly overhead and I sat across from Goku on the cold earth, flinching from the temperature. Damn, it was freezing for only being the beginning of fall. He finally reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a small black box as promised, which he held away from me when I reached out for it.

“Uh uh, first I need you to promise me something,” Goku said.

I agreed. It was worth it for whatever was in the damn box.

The Saiyan leaned forward and placed the box on the ground between us. “Don’t tell anyone about the presents I give you, okay? I don’t want them to be jealous. If you can keep my secrets, I’ll make sure no one ever hears yours.”

There was a threat layered in his words. I nodded and scooped up the box to flip it open. There was a shiny silver bracelet made of interlocking hearts lying inside. It was on my wrist in an instant and I became so overcome with joy that I reached forward to hug Goku tightly around the neck. His hands lifted up slightly like he was going to return the affection but he quickly dropped them and dug his fingers into the hard ground.

“Thank you so much!” I squealed. “How did you know I love hearts?”

Goku picked up the empty box and closed it. His eyes looked vacant again. His smile was wide. “Just intuition, I guess.”


	22. 5

When we went back home, Pan was sitting in the living room surrounded by stacks of boxes. It looked like she was electrocuted when she saw Goku and she hurried off to the basement. She was taking Chi-Chi’s death even harder than her father. Goku shut the door behind us and sighed.

“Guess I should talk to her,” he said.

Away he went. I lingered in the living room for a few minutes before deciding to head upstairs to Gohan’s old bedroom, which would be a much better place to sleep than Goku’s. It was totally empty save for a small bed near the window that looked out on the forest of Mt. Paozu. Living in the middle of nowhere had a few perks and the scenery had to be my favorite.

Pan started yelling something at her grandfather but it was abruptly cut off. It wasn’t my business to get involved in their family problems, anyway. I searched the room for some bedsheets and came up empty-handed, which meant I’d have to use a bunch of Goku’s training shirts as I could to keep warm. The heat and energy had been disconnected for the impending destruction tomorrow.

As I gazed out the window into the woods, I suddenly sensed someone watching me. I turned my head so fast my neck cracked. Goku was standing in the doorway, leaning against in casually with his hands in his pockets. He smiled at me through the darkness and nodded his head toward the window. His eyebrows were drawn together a bit as if he was hiding anger.

“Isn’t it pretty?” he asked.

I shrugged. “I prefer city lights but sure. How’s Pan doing? I thought I heard her yelling earlier. Does she want to come upstairs and talk to me? It might be a girl thing.”

Goku moved away from the doorframe, still keeping his hands burrowed in his pockets. To my surprise, he shut the bedroom door before walking over to sit beside me. Wasn’t he sleeping on the couch? I kind of wanted to have my own bed for the night.

Our thighs touched again but I didn’t move this time. It wasn’t a big deal. He was my friend and accidentally touching wasn’t the end of the world. I smiled up at him and watched the clouds slowly move across the blackened sky outside. Finally, someone wasn’t pestering me.

“So all of this must be interfering with your friends,” he said, opening up yet another can of worms.

“Yeah, I guess. I’d rather be out… uh… socializing on a Friday night.”

Goku smirked and leaned closer so our arms were touching. “Aw, come on, Bulla. I was a teenager, too. I know what all of you like to do when you… socialize.” He was really close. He smelled like damp earth. “You can tell me if you ever need anything. I’ll pick you up, drop you off, or give you stuff.”

“You’ll… what?” I echoed. I was staring at him in disbelief, wondering if he understood what I really meant by socializing. “You do know what I’m talking about, right?”

“Shh,” he murmured, placing a finger to his lips. “We don’t want to disturb Pan. Remember what I told you about her being jealous?”

My heart was pounding with excitement. Since when was Goku so cool? He listened to me, gave me jewelry, and best of all he would hook me up with alcohol for parties! Our faces were close but I looked past the intent practically shining in his eyes. Why weren’t my parents that great?!

I licked my lips. “This isn’t a trick, right? You’re not gonna rat me out to my parents?”

“Bulla, you can trust me with anything.” He glanced over his shoulder before looking back at me with a smug smile. “You know, I have some things in the fridge. They’re probably warm by now but if you were interested, we could have fun instead of going to sleep.”

“Just us? Are you sure? Isn’t that kinda weird?”

“We could just go to bed,” he said, putting his arms behind his head.

My phone started vibrating and I was forced to leave our conversation. It was mom sending me a text, asking how it was going with Goku. I told her I was getting tired and wanted to know what I was doing for bed. She answered me in a few seconds: Stay there. It’s good for you.

Yeah, staying with Goku certainly seemed good for me at the time.

I smiled to show him I had made my decision and he was gone in an instant, rummaging through boxes downstairs. Hopefully he was serious about not telling my parents because my father would go ballistic if he found out. I was empowered by my rebellion. I wanted to make my parents angry.

Goku came back soon with a bottle of something clear in his hand. He offered me a glass and twisted open the cap, pouring said liquid in my cup. I lifted it to my nose and sniffed, reeling back when I realized it was hard liquor. My friends and I normally drank wine coolers or beers. Goku snickered and chugged half the bottle without batting an eye.

“That’s not fair,” I said. “You’re a full-blooded Saiyan. I bet it doesn’t work as well on you.”

“You can do it. Just close your eyes and drink. Even if you puke, we’re tearing the place down tomorrow so it doesn’t matter.” He gave me a serious look. “I thought you did this often. If I’m dealing with a little girl, maybe I should put it away.”

He was baiting me and I stupidly snapped on the writhing worm. I squeezed my eyes shut and managed to get about half the cup down my throat before I had to stop and cough. It burned terribly. My stomach immediately began to protest but I wanted to hurry up and finish it. I swallowed the rest and threw the glass on the floor where it shattered into tiny pieces.

The alcohol hit me like a train a few minutes later and I was reduced to a giggling mess.

Everything was spinning. I wasn’t tipsy like normal. No, this time I was seriously wasted. I held my hands in front of my face and squinted desperately at them, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. My head felt light and heavy at the same time and my bracelet jangled quietly when I kept waving my fingers in front of me. Goku put the bottle down and kept me on the bed as I tried to get up. I wanted to run around the house and break things.

I pouted at him, offering my best watery eyes. “Goooooku, lemme go. I wanna go for a walk!”

“Be a good girl,” he murmured, brushing my hair out of my eyes. “Do you feel better now? I bet being drunk takes a lot of stress off your shoulders.”

“It sure does! I’m gonna… I’m hungry. Can we have some food or somethin’?”

“Under one condition only.”

“Anything! I’m so hungry I might die.”

“Beg me,” he said. His eyes were wide and looked as hungry as mine for a totally different reason. One of his hands crept over the top of mine. “But you have to be convincing or you’re gonna go to bed with an empty belly.”

My drunken mind didn’t see a problem with it. I giggled again, thinking he was just playing a game, and clasped my hands together teasingly. We were really close but I couldn’t smell any alcohol on his breath. “Please, Goku? I’m so hungry.”

“I don’t know, I think I need more convincing.” He leaned back on his palms, watching me with growing interest. Again I noticed that the moonlight wasn’t reflecting off his pupils.

The alcohol put things together that weren’t there. My hands were suddenly tugging impatiently on my layers of shirts and I tore them off until I was only wearing a camisole. It was something I thought I inherited from mom: show men your boobs and they’ll give you anything. I leaned forward to show off my assets and Goku looked like he was going to explode.

It was liberating being able to take off my clothes like that for a man. Goku was just a family friend. I wasn’t really doing it for his benefit.

Black eyes roamed down my body. He wanted to see more and there was a perfectly willing drunk girl on all fours beside him. “Isn’t this fun? I’m much better than your parents. I’ll let you do whatever you want, Bulla, and I’ll only ask you to do little things for me.”

“Okay,” I yawned. “Can we eat food now?”

“I’ll bring you some bread and water. We don’t want you getting sick so early on. Why don’t you lie down and relax? There’s no sheets so I figured we could sleep together and keep one another warm.” He gathered up the discarded shirts and dropped them on the floor.

“Okay! I wanna come get food!” I hopped up off the bed and was immediately stricken with nausea followed by more intense drunkenness. I was such a lightweight.

Goku caught me before I fell. His big hands lingered on my waist and he didn’t seem to want to let go. “Okay, okay, you can come with me. Just don’t fall down the stairs or anything.”

We made our way down and I rushed out to search for bread in the pantry. As soon as I found it half of the loaves were stuffed down my gullet before Goku could take it out of my hands. I chewed with delirious joy and he shook his head, hiding a satisfied smirk with the parental disapproval. I didn’t see Chi-Chi hanging from the ceiling when I blinked.

I perched on the counter and swung my legs carelessly back and forth as the food filled up my already upset stomach. Goku hovered back for a moment to gauge me before he moved forward, strangely calculating and silent. I grinned, showing off a mouthful of spongy bread. The kitchen was cold.

That made him come towards me, slowly like I might try to flee. He was so huge. His big body eclipsed the entrance to the kitchen. The floor creaked as he walked closer and finally wound up standing between my legs. He braced his hands on either side of my hips and smiled disarmingly, but I was far from nervous. I flicked the tip of his nose with my fingertip and giggled to myself.

“Boys usually take advantage of drunken girls,” Goku said in a sickly sweet voice. He brushed my hair away from my face again, pausing to touch my cheek. “But I would never do that to you. I want you to feel comfortable with me and do things on your own. What do you want, Bulla?”

It was the logical next step. I swiftly leaned in and kissed him on the forehead, drawing back like I’d pressed my lips to molten metal right after and covering my mouth. Goku didn’t look surprised but I could tell he got what he wanted out of me. It was getting hot. He was hot like a wild flame.

“Whoopsies,” I said.

“It’s not bad. You shouldn’t be sorry.” Goku wrapped an arm around my waist and scooped me off the counter with one arm under my behind to keep me from falling. “It’s bed time for you. There’s been enough excitement for us tonight.”

“Whatever you say, sir.”

Upstairs, Goku set me gently on the bed and peeled off his shirt and pants in front of me. He should’ve known by then that it offended people. Fortunately for him, I was too wasted to care. I had snuggled up in a ball when I felt fingers around the hem of my pants and looked to see Goku trying to pull them off.

His innocent eyes burned holes in me. “I can keep you warmer this way.”

It was a premeditated. He’d gone over his plan time and time again. The sense of déjà vu and mild fear came back just to be squashed by the alcohol. I shrugged and he knelt in front of me on the bed to carefully help me wriggle out of my black pants. His fingertips touched my skin and at one point he deliberately grabbed my thigh. His hand almost wound around it completely.

“You’re a skinny little thing, aren’t you?” Goku whispered, leaning over me. 

“Sure am! Goodnight.”

Goku watched me for a few seconds before he gave in and laid down beside me. He was warm, so I turned over and curled up close to his chest, pressing my cold fingers to his skin to keep them from freezing off. He shivered but it wasn’t from the temperature. I was accustomed to being around huge muscles from the days when daddy held me at night.

The Saiyan’s arms curled around me and I felt safe. He kissed the crown of my head in what I thought was a friendly gesture. “Goodnight, Bulla.”

There was a nagging suspicion in my mind that wouldn’t surface until it was too late.


	23. 6

A pounding headache was my wakeup call the next day. I groaned as I woke to a serious intense hangover and shielded my eyes from the intrusive sunlight outside. As usual, I drank way too much. Goosebumps rose along my legs as the temperature of the room caught up with my half-awake body and I shuddered to warm myself up. My stomach was killing me.

I sat up in bed and rubbed my eyes blearily, trying to remember what I had done the night before. Goku gave me some alcohol and… wait. It dawned upon me that I was only wearing my camisole and underwear, leaving the rest of me totally exposed. I yelped and snatched one of Goku’s shirts off the floor to cover myself as footsteps came down the hall. When did I start stripping?!

Goku stepped in the room with just a towel around his waist that didn’t leave much to the imagination. He shook some water out of his hair and smiled at me, much to my horror. What had I done? Did I… no. I wasn’t that stupid when I was drunk. Right?

“Good morning,” he said, admiring my dumbfounded expression. “How’d you sleep?”

I gawked at him. “We didn’t… do anything, did we?”

“Of course not. I would never take advantage of you, Bulla. But when we were downstairs getting food you did give me a kiss on my forehead. It was nice.”

“I’m so sorry!” I gasped. “Oh my god I am so embarrassed right now.”

“Don’t worry about it, Bulla.” Goku leaned on the doorframe and folded his arms over his bare chest. “It’ll be our little secret, okay? If you won’t tell anyone, I won’t either.”

“No, no, no, that was so wrong of me. Maybe I should go home and try to sleep this off before I do anything else stupid. God, you’re like… way older than me and my father can’t stand you and I can already hear mom screeching at me over it.” Distraught, I stepped off the bed, still clinging the shirt to my chest so it hid my most private parts. “I even took off my clothes!”

Suddenly, Goku looked very serious. He moved so he was blocking the door and his smiled broke a bit. “You should stay. No one will be mad because neither of us will tell them about it. You can trust me with anything. I’ve already seen girls without their clothes on.”

The prickling suspicion came back. I could still taste the alcohol on my tongue and when I swallowed, my mouth felt oddly dry. Goku walked toward me and I had an urge to take a step back but I managed to keep myself rooted to the spot. He took the shirt from my hands, told me to lift my arms, and pulled it over my head. It came to rest around my knees. He tied the sash around my waist tightly.

“My mom is probably worried,” I said. “I should go.”

“She called a little while ago to let us know that I’m bringing you to the city to see the psy… the psy… the head doctor. Vegeta and the others are gonna tear down the house while we’re gone and we’ll rebuild it later on today.” He picked lint off my shoulder.

I looked down at my feet, becoming flustered by how close we were. “I don’t want to go to the stupid therapist. I just want to go home and sleep instead of dealing with this.”

“Bulla, Bulla, Bulla,” Goku said, tipping my chin up with his index finger so our eyes met, “do you really think I’d make you go to that if you don’t want to? We can send someone else in your place. I know a great place you can sleep off your hangover.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to get in more trouble or for my parents to think I’m acting weird. If they found out they’d wonder why I’m sneaking around with… you.”

“We aren’t sneaking. We’re giving you a bit of freedom.” He drew his finger away from my chin to tap me on the nose. “And if both of us stay quiet, no one will ever know. I’ll let you do whatever you want as long as you promise never to tell anyone. Can I trust you or should I tell your parents about last night?”

This was not the Goku I remembered from my childhood. There was something burning in his eyes and I didn’t like seeing it. I swallowed hard and nodded anyway, willing to take the risks to reap the benefits. He would let me drink, stay up late, and play hooky? That was cool with me. 

Goku reached forward to grasp the back of my neck and pressed my forehead to his lips. It was moist. When he pulled away my mild discomfort was becoming unbearable. What was he doing? What did he want out of me? Were we friends or was he trying to suggest he wanted something more?

No, that was crazy. He was old and his wife just died. I was still in high school going crazy over boys who could care less about me. I’d rather go shopping than stay home and raise kids. He held the back of my head for a few extra seconds and started laughing as a blush crept into my face. I was humiliated.

“Am I making you nervous?” he asked.

“No.”

“Aw, you’re turning pink!” Goku bent down so we were eye-level with both hands on his knees. 

“No I’m not.”

“You’re so cute, like a blue-haired version of Pan.”

My fear melted away. Okay, good, he wasn’t looking at me like that. I punched him in the arm and he backed away, still grinning hugely. Who was I kidding, anyway? Goku saw everyone as a potential friend, regardless of age or gender. I needed to stop worrying so much. He left the room to get dressed in normal street clothes.

We went downstairs, where Pan was sitting on the couch gazing into space. Just as I started to say something to her someone knocked on the door and interrupted me. I sat beside her and gently put my hand on her knee, making her jump again like she was zapped by a livewire. Her big black eyes looked around wildly until they settled on me for a few seconds.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Gohan came in the door right after and she leapt off the couch into his waiting arms. He kissed the side of her head and Videl was there, too, smiling happily now that her family was reunited. My father and brother came inside next and dad’s expression hardened over when he saw me sitting on the couch. Oh, right. I was only wearing Goku’s training shirt.

“What is the meaning of this, Kakarot?” dad snapped, pointing at me.

“I bet she was sick of wearing black,” Videl said. God bless her for coming to my rescue.

I nodded, scowling at dad. “You threw me out of the house so fast that I didn’t even have time to put clothes on. Luckily, Goku has a lot of extras so I wasn’t stuck wearing my funeral clothes to bed.”

Trunks didn’t look too pleased, either. I didn’t care. Goku let me have fun and listened to me complain for a good two hours. There was no way I’d throw him under the bus. Dad gave it up without another word and muttered something about me covering up.

We moved the necessities out of the house and Goku told dad and Trunks to just blow the whole thing up. It wouldn’t take him long to build a new one. Gohan and Videl left with Pan so she could spend some time with them and I began to wonder what she meant by “I’m sorry.” Maybe she was apologizing for me witnessing her grandmother hanging herself. It really shook her up.

Goku came outside around three to bring me home so I could put some real clothes on. He put a hand on my shoulder and before we disappeared, I saw dad’s upper lip curl in a snarl. He acted like it was a big deal when any guy touched me. Goku was harmless. Dad was a jerk.

No one was home when we arrived at Capsule Corp. I let us inside and hurried up to my bedroom to change, expecting Goku to wait for me in the living room. But he followed me up the stair case and into my room without a moment’s hesitation. He shut my door and leaned against it. Damn, he was huge.

“I don’t want to leave you alone,” he said. “You still seem a bit drunk to me. Go ahead; I’ve seen it all before when I gave Pan baths.” He leaned harder against the door and it clicked shut. “Besides, I was married for thirty years.”

It still felt strange. I fingered the hem of his shirt, trying to summon the nerve to question him. Normally I was very forthright with people and had no problem speaking my mind, including with Goku. But our relationship had a new facet and that made things a bit more complicated. I was nervous around him. I was kind of afraid to make him angry.

“Are you… sure? I don’t want to be weird.”

“Go right ahead. I’ll make sure no one comes in.” Goku put his hands in his pockets.

Defeated, I rummaged through my drawer for clothes. I picked out the plainest underwear I could find and changed out of mine while I was still hidden beneath Goku’s shirt. His eyes roamed my room; I didn’t even think he was looking at me. I yanked off the training shirt and quickly pulled on a t-shirt with jeans so I was ready in the blink of an eye. 

Goku watched me spray on perfume. “Why do you use that stuff? It smells bad.”

“No it doesn’t. It makes me smell like a girl.”

“I like how the normal Bulla smells,” he said with a frown.

“I don’t. You ready to go? Speaking of which, where exactly are we going?”

“Well I wanted to take you out shopping for the afternoon but if you’re tired and want to sleep… I guess that’s okay, too.” He shrugged his big shoulders. “Your choice.”

He had me at “shopping.”


	24. 7

It wasn’t odd to see me come home with my arms full of bags so neither of my parents questioned me when I walked in the door. Goku had left to build his new home and I wanted to put away all the new things he bought me. I was ecstatic—there were new shirts, jeans, jewelry; even a few pairs of shoes. He let me get anything I wanted and didn’t say a word about it.

Mom glanced over her shoulder when she heard the door shut. “Hey, honey. What’d you buy today? How did things go with the doctor? I hope you feel better soon.”

Her words were meaningless. She just wanted me out of her hair. She was relieved I spent the day shopping instead of talking about my feelings. I shrugged and told her it was just a few things and headed upstairs to put it all away while my father peeked over his newspaper. 

Come on. They were practically pushing me into Goku’s arms.

When all of my clothes were put away, I took a quick shower and finally hopped in bed to text my friends and watch TV. The past few days had been hard and I needed to relax. I yawned as I flipped through the channels, gradually nodding off. The hangover still had a tenuous hold on me…

_The dream had me before I was even fully asleep. I was sitting in my living room watching TV and someone was sitting beside me, asking awkward questions. I gave equally awkward responses, but I couldn’t control what I was saying. It was a guy. He asked me something that really annoyed me and we went upstairs, where I handed him an electric blanket. As I walked down the hall I heard him call me._

_“Will you sleep with me, Bulla?”_

_I spun around on my heel and laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”_

_Time was suddenly at a breakneck speed. I followed him in a spare bedroom and we were lying beside each other and did he pull me closer? We fell asleep. Was I going to dream within a dream? That kind of stuff only happened in blockbuster movies._

_We were at the wake but something was different. Everyone looked a bit more peaceful. The strange man was watching me a lot and he gave me a pretty necklace with a heart on the end. I loved it. He asked me to come to his house with Pan and then… and then…_

_“It’s natural. Men and women do it all the time.”_

My strangled gasp made waking up even worse. I put a hand on my chest, surprised to feel my heart pounding furiously. What an eerie dream to have on such a good day. The details of it soon slipped from my mind and I groggily checked the time: nearly three in the morning. Again I yawned and fell back into the soft embrace of my pillows, fully intent on snoozing my problems away.

The worst part of sleeping is that it lets your mind wander so much.

_“You know grandpa pretty well, right?”_

_There was a picture of me with Goku on the beach when I was really little, maybe five. Pan was gone and I was in bed with someone sitting beside me making noises I didn’t want to hear. His fingers crawled all over me like snakes. I shuddered but there was no escape._

_“Oh, Bulla, you’re such a good girl.”_

_I tasted something thick and salty._

_Everyone was going on a trip and we went for a nighttime walk. I knew who it was but I was afraid to admit it to myself. He was carrying me. Then he set me down and talked a lot about things I couldn’t understand. Not at my age. His eyes were deep and so black. We were talking and he brought me to his house so I could sleep in his bed._

_Presents were waiting for the next morning. I didn’t like them. He didn’t want me to leave and I flew away anyway until I was home. When my parents asked, I lied._

_“We’ve all been thinking it. Something wasn’t right about Chi-Chi’s death.” Mom said it. She looked really upset; torn between what her heart and mind were telling her._

_Back in the field, where he was crying and telling me, a sixteen year old girl, all his feelings. I looked into his eyes and felt a horrible desire to love and be loved. We kissed and his eyes were black again._

_Now I’m okay with everything. We’re kissing and he’s touching me where I didn’t want to be touched. But he’s so nice. I can trust him with anything, even if he’s weird. He asks me to taste more of the gross sticky stuff and I do without much hesitation. I’m learning._

_There’s a party with the other kids at school. I go and of course something goes wrong. Three boys attack me and my guardian angel literally snaps their necks. He pushes their bodies in the lake and asks me to bring Pan home. Since when does Pan go to parties?_

_We’re apart for a long time. He loses his patience—he can’t keep waiting for me. He finds me in the woods, takes me, and I’m no longer Bulla Briefs. All I am is Goku. He takes his time with me and calls me the wrong name; says he’ll never hurt me. I’m laughing so hard I think I might die._

My alarm clock woke me up instead. I stared at the ceiling for a few minutes, ignoring the frantic blaring from my nightstand and shook away the remnants of my terrible nightmare. It was hard to explain how I felt. It was almost like someone was trying to tell me something. Oh, who was I kidding? My mind was spinning out of control like it always did.

The nightmare couldn’t even stick with me long enough for me to consider what it meant. There was a knock on my door and mom peeked her head in, then grinned. I was wearing a pair of pajamas Goku bought for me. They were orange of course. That was the only color he seemed to like.

“Want to go see Goku’s new house?” mom asked.

It should’ve been a big surprise that he built it overnight but I had been expecting it. I nodded and hopped out of bed to pick something out from my collection I amassed during our shopping trip. He’d be happy if he saw me in clothes he bought. He’d wink at me: it was our little secret.

When the Briefs family was ready (minus Trunks—he lived on his own now) we drove the car out of the city toward Mt. Paozu. Mom liked driving over flying because it made us feel more normal. Dad didn’t know how to operate a car so of course he hated it and complained every chance he got. But this time he didn’t say anything, just stared out the window at the passing scenery.

We arrived to see the entire Son family gathered outside, all set up for a picnic. Videl was on her feet in seconds to greet us, already taking over Chi-Chi’s role of being the mouthpiece of her whole family. Goten was sitting at the picnic table with Valese, holding her hand and stroking her fingers. Gohan was sitting beside Pan in the grass to look up at the house his father had built.

It looked largely the same in my humble opinion. Goku had actually made the place smaller. I had my doubts that there were even two bedrooms left anymore. We all sat down together and everyone started talking: Pan was finally coming to life when she told us that she would be going to Orange Star High. I was happy for her. She deserved some normalcy.

“I hope we can be friends, Bulla,” she said with a beatific smile in my direction. “Maybe we could go shopping one afternoon and you could introduce me to some people. I like Shoppa a lot.”

“Of course! You name the day and I’ll be there.” 

Pan wasn’t that bad. Kinda geeky but there was still a glimmer of hope. Her smile got even bigger for a minute until she met my eyes. It faltered and she looked down at the table, suddenly very interested by the woodwork. I didn’t know if I did something to offend her.

“We’re realizing that Pan needs to make some good friends besides her father and I,” Videl said in a slightly hushed tone as if it was a big secret. “Gohan doesn’t want her to go but I went to OSH and it was a great experience. Plus, Bulla knows most of the kids there so it won’t be hard for Pan to fit in.”

They talked for a while longer until the man of the hour finally made his entrance. Goku was wearing a moderately fancy outfit that Videl had probably forced on him. He smiled and we all melted. That was how strong Son Goku’s charisma was. He rubbed the back of his head and sat down beside me. No one seemed to notice his choice except me, which was sort of a relief.

Mom laughed. “I see Videl has had her way with you.”

I couldn’t help but notice Gohan’s eyes flicker up from watching Pan. He was awfully protective of her and his wife. I looked over at my father and he acted like he was staring past me, but I knew he was keeping an eye on Goku. What a worrywart. Saiyan men were so needy.

“Someone needs to show him how to dress,” Videl said. “The house looks great. As usual, Goku did a fantastic job. When we’re all done eating we can give you the grand tour.”

“I just made it smaller. No need for all the room.” Goku clasped his big hands on the table and pressed his thigh against mine. “With Goten moving in with Valese, a second bedroom is impractical. It’s gonna be less to clean in the end, too.”

“Bulla can help you decorate,” mom offered a bit too quickly for my taste.

“I like clothes, mom. That doesn’t make me an interior designer.”

Goku’s leg was hot. It made the bench I was sitting on feel a lot less cold. They all started talking about how great the new house would look and how it was a new beginning. I still felt uneasy from my nightmare. There had been something urgent about it and now the whole thing escaped me.

Pan was back to being strangely silent and Gohan had his arm around her. Geez, no wonder she didn’t have any friends. Even my father knew when to back off and let me have some freedom. I picked at the macaroni salad on my plate and they all chatted and laughed. Videl put onions in it. I hated onions.

“If you’re bringing Bulla to the doctor tomorrow she might as well stay here.” 

It was mom. Was she doing it deliberately? Did she want me to give up on living at home and just move in with Goku? I started bending my plastic fork until one of the teeth snapped. She couldn’t be dumb and blind enough to think nothing would ever happen between us.

“Bulla really needs the support of adults,” Videl said again in her hushed tone. “It’s hard for teenagers to get over things like that. I read that…” She went off on a spiel about a study she saw in a paper.

“Pan wants to go to school,” Gohan said. “She won’t be staying here.”

“I think it’ll be good for Bulla to have some time away from her friends.” Mom. Again.

“Kakarot does not need a glorified babysitter,” dad snapped. Once again, he was the voice of reason.

“Oh, hush up, Vegeta!” Mom was mad he found her out. “Goku could use some company and he brings Bulla to the doctor, anyway. I’d be quiet unless you want to make your own meals from now on.”

They wanted me to babysit him and in turn my mother wanted him babysitting me. It was mildly sickening. Neither of us could be trusted to be alone so why not force us to watch one another? I stabbed a piece of fruit with my ruined fork and stuck it in my mouth before I said anything. Mom hated these kinds of things. She hated feelings.

Videl offered to give everyone a tour of the house so Goku and I could go to my house to get some of my clothes. I could barely keep my lips zipped. They wanted me to stay for a week before I went back to school. It was the last place I wanted to be. Yeah, Goku was nice and he bought me things and listened to me whine, but I didn’t want to live with him during my time off school.

Goku put a hand on my shoulder to use instant transmission. We waved goodbye.


	25. 8

“Bulma seems upset.”

As usual, Goku spoke matter-of-factly. I glanced at him over my shoulder as I piled clothes into my suitcase and shrugged. Of course mom was upset. She realized dad knew what she was doing and didn’t want her to keep pushing me out of the house. Goku was sitting on my bed watching TV. He scratched his head quizzically while his black eyes followed the cartoon flickering across the screen.

I was slowly beginning to realize that something wasn’t right about Goku but I was afraid to say anything. What if I was wrong? He’d be mad, I’d be embarrassed and my mother wouldn’t know what to do with me. Then I’d actually have to go to therapy. I was kneeling on the floor folding shirts when I heard him clear his throat. He wanted me to look at him.

“Yes?” I asked without breaking my routine.

Goku sat up and my bed creaked. “Can I braid your hair? Pan showed me how to do it.”  
My spine prickled at the thought of his big fingers twisting my hair into patterns. I unconsciously reached up to smooth my ponytail and had to swallow a baseball-sized lump before I could talk again. No, there was no way I’d let him touch my hair.

“Maybe later. I want to finish getting my stuff together so we can catch everyone before they head home. Mom needs to let me go back to school soon.”

“Bulla, come here and let me braid your hair. I bought you all those nice things and I’m still doing something nice for you.”

“I’m really tired from everything so I’ll just fall asleep in the middle of it.”

His smile didn’t fade. “Do you really want your parents to know what you did last night?”

We stared at each other for a few long moments as his threat sank in. The door slammed downstairs and Goku raised an eyebrow, asking if I was willing to take a gamble. I shook my head slowly and my bedroom door opened to let in both of my parents.

Mom set her hands on her hips. “All packed and ready?”

“Just about!” Goku said. “Bulla’s excited to train with me and we’re going fishing, too!”

“That’s so sweet of you, Goku. I’m glad she can get away from the city for a while.”

Dad glared at Goku without hesitation. I got to my feet and Goku followed suit, hugging mom after I did and promising to bring me back in one piece. Once again I was separated from my parents and once again I was left wondering why they didn’t care. Was I that bad? I knew they hated feelings so I hid mine as best as I could. 

The sun was setting when we arrived at Goku’s new home. He had been true to his word: it was the same on the inside, just much smaller. It was good for a single person to live in. I brought my things upstairs and dropped them in the bedroom. Hopefully we didn’t have to share.

“I’m glad I don’t have to go to that place in the city anymore.”

I turned to see Goku standing in the bedroom doorway, arms folded over his broad chest. There was a dull sense of foreboding in the back of my head that I completely ignored. I’d let him touch my hair if he wanted to. I liked when people did it, anyway. Dad did when I was a kid.

“What place?” I asked, only vaguely interested.

“Oh, nowhere interesting. Why don’t you sit on the bed and I’ll bring some snacks?” He dropped his hands to try looking more open. “We can talk. I miss talking.”

It sounded fine with me. I crept into his new bed with blue sheets and turned on the TV. At least he invested in some modern technology. I flipped through the channels and settled upon cartoons again since that seemed to be the only thing he had available. Strange. Oh well. I liked them.

Something was seriously wrong and I kept ignoring it.

Goku came back upstairs with some fruit and chocolate. It was turning dark in the bedroom but the television kept it light enough to see. He sat behind me and moved forward so I was between his legs, which were sprawled out alongside mine. It was near bedtime and he was only in his boxers; I could see the muscles bulging in his calves. Then his fingers were pulling out my ponytail.

It felt good to have my hair touched. At first I ate a few pieces of fruit but soon my eyelids were falling so far that I could barely see the cartoon. He wound my hair in loose braids and hummed quietly while I struggled to stay awake. His chest was just behind my back. If I let out the tension in my spine I could be resting on him and just fall asleep…

“You’re quiet tonight,” Goku said as I was about to collapse.

“Hmm? Oh, sorry. You’re making me tired.”

When he laughed, I could feel it in my chest. “That’s a good thing, right? I’m glad you’re comfortable with me. I like making new friends.”

“Well, to be honest, I had my doubts about you.” Now awake, I picked out a piece of chocolate and popped it in my mouth. Strawberry center. My favorite. “But if my parents are on board with us hanging out then I guess it’s cool with me. I haven’t spoken to Shoppa in a while since we started talking.”

“Really now?”

“Yup. She doesn’t get me like you do.”

Oops. I jammed more fruit in my mouth and leaned away from him, feeling myself turning red. Since when was I all sappy and emotional? I liked complaining but I didn’t like dealing with feelings. Goku hesitated a bit at my Freudian slip before resuming braiding my hair. His fingers brushed my neck.

“I’m really happy you trust me,” he said. 

When he reached past me to get a piece of chocolate off the plate I felt something hard press against my lower back. His breath was hot on my shoulder for a second. He moved back into place but something was different. Now we were closer than before and what the heck was poking me? 

I shivered but it wasn’t that cold. “So the house looks nice.”

“Thanks. I’ve been here so long I could just rebuild it from memory. I closed off the ceiling, too.”

Goku’s big hands drifted away from my hair to my shoulders and he squeezed to test the waters. A combination of nerves and curiosity kept me from saying anything. He massaged my back gently without uttering a word, leaving me to watch my cartoon in silence. I couldn’t lie, it felt really good. The perfect mix of pressure and tenderness. My concerns melted away with each rub.

Yeah, I was crazy. There was nothing wrong with Goku. He was rubbing my back and giving me a tasty snack before we went to bed. It was one of the best nights of my life.

“It’ll be easier if you take off your shirt,” he said.

What did it matter? He had already seen naked girls. I thought he was genderless, in a way. I reached back to unhook my bra and took it all off without thinking much about it. He brushed my hair forward around my shoulder then returned to massaging my back. I was close to falling asleep.

“Are all guys like you?”

It was a question I had been burning to ask. If they were, I was really excited about growing up.

Goku laughed. “No. Very few of them are. They’re more like your father.”

“Oh… ew,” I said, making a disgusted face. “Dad never gives mom back rubs or anything. You do nice things for me all the time and we aren’t married or anything. You’re really something, Goku.”

“I’m something all right. You’re beautiful. I’ve never seen anything more perfect.”

“Thank you! I think it partially has to do with being a Saiyan but the rest is all genetics.”

“Perfection shouldn’t be wasted. Not everyone appreciates it.” Goku leaned in close to my ear. His breath smelled like strawberries. My favorite. “I will never waste you, Bulla. You will always be cherished when you’re with me. You don’t want a gangly, rude teenage boy spoiling you, right?”

It all flew over my head. I giggled and nodded, thinking it was just another silly quirk of Son Goku. He was the only person giving me the attention I wanted. He took my earlobe between his teeth and tugged slightly, making me wriggle nervously. It was getting late. I needed to go to bed so I could actually wake up at a decent time.

My naked back was pressed against his bare chest. I could feel his muscles tensing. Goku leaned back until I was lying on him and started playing with my hair again, a bit more idly this time. I stretched and yawned, ready to fall asleep. One of my arms was slung over my chest; a weak grasp at modesty.

The peace was broken by a knock on the door.

Goku went stiff as a board and sat up, clinging me to his chest so he could wrap me up in the comforter. He got out of bed and tugged on a t-shirt without pants at first, then seemed to realize it would be a good idea to be fully clothed. I moved the plate of snacks to the nightstand and followed him downstairs, curious to see who was visiting so late.

When he peered through the peephole I could have sworn I heard him curse. He ran a hand through his thick black hair and looked over his shoulder at me standing unsurely by the staircase. The person knocked more intently and Goku yanked it open, muttering something else.

There was a girl about my age standing outside with a piece of paper in her hand. My jealousy flared—she was okay-looking but nothing special. She had brown eyes and brown hair like everyone else. Me? I was blue as the ocean. I stepped closer and her eyes flickered to me and narrowed dangerously.

“Yes?” Goku said tersely.

The girl ripped her eyes off me and handed him the paper, which he opened and stared at.

“We need to talk,” she said. “I’m pregnant.”


	26. 9

There was an eerie silence. Goku scrutinized the note for a while before tearing it in half and reducing it to ashes with energy from his palm. He roughly pushed the girl outside and turned to smile at me, trying to keep everything under control. I stared blankly at him and clutched the comforter tighter. Surely it had to be a mistake. Goku couldn’t have gotten a girl my age pregnant.

“I’ll be right back, Bulla,” he said. “You go upstairs and get ready for bed.”

The moment the door shut I heard the girl shouting at him. There was a pop from instant transmission and I was left alone with my jumbled thoughts. After a while I found the will to move again and went back upstairs to change into my pajamas. I wanted to be asleep when he came back.

Watching cartoons distracted me a bit. I ate the rest of the snacks and tried not to think about a strange girl coming back to sleep at Goku’s with me. Why did it bother me to think of that? Goku wasn’t mine. He was my friend, which meant he could sleep with whoever he wanted, including girls my age.

Still, if the girl found out she was pregnant just now, that must have meant they slept together over a month ago. The pieces were fitting together without me willing them to. Chi-Chi was still alive a month ago and from what I saw, Goku knew the girl pretty well. Did that mean…

My chest felt tight. Did Chi-Chi find out about his affair and kill herself over it?  
The door shut downstairs and I quickly laid down, pulling the sheets up to my neck. Instead of coming to the bedroom Goku went to the bathroom and started the shower. I was relieved. I shut my eyes and prayed for sleep to come quickly. Maybe I wouldn’t remember any of it in the morning. There was a sick feeling in my stomach as I realized what I had to do.

No. I didn’t have to tell my parents. Goku did a lot of nice things for me so the least I could do was keep his secrets. Chi-Chi was always complaining and depressed anyway. She probably didn’t even know what Goku was doing, if he was doing it at all. The girl could’ve been blackmailing him.

The bedroom door opened. I squeezed my eyes shut as Goku wandered around the room, getting pajamas and humming to himself. When he crawled in bed beside me he brushed my hair away from my face to kiss my cheek. Warm water dripped on my bare arm. I struggled to keep my eyes closed and look like I was deeply asleep.

“You’re awake,” he said. “I can tell by your energy.”

Dammit.

I sighed and turned over to face him, accidentally touching his chest in the process. Why did he keep going to bed half naked? Goku was trembling slightly. He stroked my hair and kissed my forehead this time and I was pressed between his biceps and his chest. It was a wordless apology.

“She was lying. She won’t bother us anymore, Bulla.”

“She seemed really upset. I hope you helped her find somewhere to go if she really is pregnant.”

“Girls your age lie a lot.” He pulled back to smile down at me disarmingly. “That’s why I like you. You never lie to me. If I ask you something, you tell me the truth.”

Something didn’t sit right with me.

The night wore on and I began to seriously worry about the strange girl. What did the note say? Was it a confirmed pregnancy test from a doctor? Where had she gone if Goku wouldn’t let her in? It was in his nature to be friendly and helpful to those in need. He didn’t throw them out for no reason.

Goku fell asleep after a while and his grip on me loosened. I slipped out of his arms and crawled out of bed, intent on figuring out where the mystery girl went. She could’ve still been wandering the woods for all I knew. I wrapped myself up in shirts and a jacket to head out into the cold night, double-checking over my shoulder that I wasn’t being followed.

Why did I care? It wasn’t like me to care. Then again, it wasn’t like Goku not to care. Everything was different and I had a feeling it would never be the same again.

I took off into the air and flew around the nearby woods close to the tree line, trying to make out a person hunching over or hiding from the cold. The minutes ticked by. I grew even more worried that Goku would wake up and catch me outside the house. Hopefully the girl was okay.

As I was preparing to head back, my eyes zeroed in on someone leaning against a tree. I wasn’t afraid of anything thanks to my alien heritage—no human was a match for me and bullets? What a joke. When I landed near the person I was relieved to see it was a girl. My eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness. It was then that I noticed she was sitting in a pool of her own blood.

The girl was slouched over and her hair obscured her face, but I could see blood glinting off a huge hole in her head. Horrified, I stepped around to see her from the front and had to turn to puke. Something had torn open her stomach. Her entrails hung limply from the fatal injury, dripping with blood and shining pink in the moonlight. It looked like a wild animal ripped her apart.

Of course I started screaming.

Wisps of snow floated past my eyes and I fell to my knees to keep screaming into my hands. It was totally different from what I normally saw. This was pure gore. It was unadulterated death; proof that my own mortality was bound to catch up with me. She was my age and she was dead.

A hand settled on my shoulder and my sobs stopped. I wiped my eyes and looked up to see Goku standing beside me, staring hard at the strange girl. He squeezed my shoulder and squatted down to my level without looking away from her. He seemed annoyed. Was he mad I snuck out to find her?

“Don’t wander in the woods alone,” he said. “Mt. Paozu is home to a lot of dangerous animals.”

The snow was falling in dense puffs. Some of it collected in Goku’s hair, starkly contrasting the pitch black tendrils. It looked kind of pretty. He caught me staring and I quickly turned my eyes back to the horrific scene by the tree. I’d rather vomit again than deal with him laughing at me.

“Why didn’t you bring her home?” I asked.

“She wouldn’t let me. She got mad and stormed off; I didn’t want to chase her around. I didn’t know this would happen, though.” He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close to his chest. “I’m sorry that you had to see this.”

“We need to bury her before more animals come, and you should tell her family. Maybe she has a wallet on her so we can find out where they live.”

“I already checked. She was an orphan living on the streets.”

My brow furrowed. “We still need to tell the police—”

“Shh, it’s time to go home. I’ll take care of everything in the morning.”

“What if an animal comes along—”

Goku wasn’t having it. He scooped me into his arms and began the journey back on foot instead of flying or using instant transmission. My eyes were still wet with tears and I couldn’t get the image of the girl out of my mind. How could he leave her body there to rot? At the very least she deserved a burial.

The nagging suspicion came back…

Big hands smoothed my hair down. “Don’t sneak out like that again.”

I nodded woodenly. Goku knew where I was, especially when I was upset. It made my energy shine like a beacon. Of course, dad could pick up on it, too, but the intensity of Goku’s energy made it eclipse everyone else’s. You could only hone in on him in a crowd of people. You became untraceable around him, which was sometimes a bad thing.

We stepped over a log and he had to readjust his hands. One wound up supporting my behind. I really wanted to get down and fly myself home. What if he had really gotten that girl pregnant? It frightened me to think of Goku with girls my age. The blinding innocence around him was fading fast.

“Did you really…” I couldn’t even finish the question. “I’m sorry, I don’t even know why I’m asking. Of course you didn’t. You were married.”

Goku kissed the side of my head. “Girls your age lie a lot, Bulla.”

Yeah, she was lying. She was another crazy teenager thrown out on the streets. It was probably forged by some backwoods doctor. It brought a bit of peace to my mind and I sighed with relief, closing my eyes as Goku finally decided to start flying. The wind blew through my hair and he held me closer to form a cocoon that protected me from the cold. There wasn’t an evil bone in his body.

At the house, Goku set me down in bed and started pulling off my layers of clothes without asking. He seemed kind of mad so I kept my mouth shut. I raised my arms when told and laid flat on my back so he could shimmy my pants off my hips. When I climbed under the sheets, he shook his index finger and patted his thigh, gesturing for me to come over. I cocked my head quizzically.

“You’ve been bad,” he said.

More seconds of confusion passed before I understood what he was saying. A giggle slipped out of my mouth and I quickly slapped my hands over my lips to keep from bursting into laughter. Was he serious? I was sixteen! Besides, it wasn’t like I did anything terrible. Dad hadn’t even done that since I was a little kid. It was another one of Goku’s jokes.

The light was gone. He grabbed my wrist to pull me into his lap on my stomach and held me down when I protested. The cold air nipped at my legs as he pulled my pants down—was that necessary?—and I panicked at the thought of his giant hands smacking me. From what I remembered of the good old days, it was gonna hurt for a few weeks. I wasn’t sure if I should scream.

_Smack_. “I do nice things for you. I want you to listen to me.”

An aggrieved hiss snapped from my teeth and I dug my nails into Goku’s thigh. His whole body shivered and he smacked me again on the other side, this time knotting his fingers in my hair when I sank into his skin again. It hurt pretty bad. 

_Smack_. This time I had no recovery period. It was pure pain.

“Will you do what I tell you?”

“I thought you weren’t like my—”

_Smack_. “Answer the question, Bulla. Will you do what I tell you?”

I grimaced and tears sprung into my eyes. “Yes.”

Goku seemed satisfied with my answer. He gently pulled my pants up and I tied my arms around his neck so he could lower me into bed. Lying on my back wasn’t an option anymore. There was so much pain in my backside that I didn’t know when it would end. He laid beside me and held me to his chest when I started crying in frustration. That wasn’t fair. I didn’t do anything wrong.

But… he was right. He did nice things for me. I should listen. It was bad to ignore him.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

His Adam’s apple bobbed and he pulled back to see my face. He wiped my tears away with his thumbs. I saw the want in his eyes and suddenly, I was five all over again, tiny and fragile. Goku was older than me. Way older. He knew things I never would and I was a half-Saiyan high school student. I was lying in bed with a man who was three, maybe four times my age.

Why didn’t it feel wrong anymore?

“Close your eyes,” he said.

It was so easy to trust Goku. My eyes shut immediately and I was fully aware of the warm bed; of the soft sheets holding our bodies close together. The dead girl was gone from my mind. It was worried about things I couldn’t comprehend. I waited patiently. Another present?

One of his hands wound around the back of my head and carefully tilted my chin upwards. His thumb ran over my lips. What was he doing? It had to be candy. He’d put it in my mouth and say “surprise!” and hopefully he remembered I hated dark chocolate—

Soft lips pressed against mine and all my thoughts were gone.

It lasted for a few seconds and Goku stopped to gauge my reaction. I stared at him blankly. Did he… did we… did Goku just kiss me? I’d kissed a guy before a long time ago but… something was different. I touched my lips and he moved closer, pressing our bodies together.

“I’m… sorry,” I stammered.

He laughed. It sounded different to my ears now. “Don’t be sorry. Did you like it?”

“I… I don’t know. Maybe. I’m really tired.”

“Are you going to tell anyone?”

Woah, woah, woah, what was happening? Goku kissed me and… what the heck was poking against my leg? I shook my head quickly as the throbbing in my behind came back with a vengeance and he smiled happily, quickly leaning it to kiss me again. It was longer and deeper: his tongue was in my mouth and his fingers were tied up in my hair.

Warmth coiled in my belly and I started kissing him back, curious and awkward. It was new and exciting and I knew I could trust him. He came even closer and we were pushed together by his big hand on my back and I felt the hardness against my skin again. My hands were busy in Goku’s hair but they found a moment to reach between us and irately push the object away.

Goku’s whole body stiffened. He broke our kiss to groan and the hard thing was pushed into my palm. It was hot and oddly big. Realization dawned upon me and I shrieked in horror, quickly pulling my hand back like I touched molten lava and shoving Goku back. His hair was even crazier than usual. There was a pink tint to his cheeks. He grinned at me.

“We can do that a different day,” he murmured. “Let’s go to sleep before we get carried away.”

“Did I just… oh my god, I am so sorry.”

“Oh, trust me, I don’t mind. Come on over here so we can rest.”

The heat got worse when we were spooning. I was trembling.


	27. 10

There were voices downstairs when I woke. I blearily rubbed my eyes and hissed in pain when I sat up, putting too much pressure on my behind. Oh, yeah. That had happened last night. I carefully climbed out of bed as laughter carried up the stairs and made my way across the room. I needed to use the bathroom and brush my teeth before I went to see who came to visit.

When I finished my business in the bathroom, I tugged down the hem of my pajama pants to see the damage Goku had done. There were angry purple handprint bruises marring my skin. I winced and rummaged through his medicine cabinet for baby powder. It would help a bit.

My memory trickled back and my lips started tingling. Oh, yeah. That happened, too. Goku kissed me and from what I was beginning to recall, I liked it. I brushed my hair and put it up in a ponytail as my throat tightened nervously. Now things would be weird. Was I allowed to tell Shoppa?

Mom and dad were gonna kill me when they found out.

I made my way downstairs to see Goku sitting in the living room with Goten, Valese, Gohan, and Videl. They were all drinking something out of mugs; probably coffee from the smell of it. All eyes turned to me when I stepped off the last stair and I waved, scanning their faces for sadness or worry. Goten and Valese were both beaming and Videl looked excited, too. Gohan’s eyes flickered to his father.

“Hi, Bulla!” Valese said. “We all have some great news!”

Well that was a relief. Anything was better than bad news in the morning. I took a seat beside Goku and could feel Gohan’s eyes probing me. He was suspicious.

Valese took Goten’s hand and bit her lower lip. “It turns out that Goten and I are… well, we’re having a baby! It was so unexpected but I think I’m ready to settle down and start a family. We’re going to build a house near Mt. Paozu and live just like Goku.”

It felt like someone stabbed me through the heart with a cold knife. Valese was pregnant? She wasn’t even that much older than me. Why was she going to settle down and raise a family? I put on a smile and leaned across the coffee table to hug her, offering my congratulations. Every man in the Son family was strangely eager to have kids and live in the wilderness. Except Gohan.

“We’re pregnant, too!” Videl squealed, squeezing Gohan’s knee. “Valese and I can’t wait. It came at the perfect time for both of us! She and Goten are going to live with us while their house is being built. Pan is so excited to have a sibling, too. She really loves kids.”

“Now Trunks just needs to meet someone,” I said jokingly.

“He’s a permanent bachelor.” Goten was grinning. “Besides, kids aren’t his thing. I remember when you were a baby and he asked Vegeta to give you to dad. He was a needy little brat.”

“How unfortunate that he didn’t,” Gohan said.

Everyone laughed but I knew it wasn’t mean to be funny. I wanted to curl up and die. Gohan stared at me, hard, until I finally had to excuse myself to the bathroom. I hurried upstairs to the beat of my pounding heart and rushed into the bedroom. I turned on my heel to slam the door shut and it banged against an arm, forcing it back open. Gohan stood there with a frigid expression on his face.

I cleared my throat. “I’m going to sleep. I was up late.”

“Were you?” He leaned on the doorframe without breaking his gaze. “Weird, because my father was always strict about bedtime. I guess it’s different with little girls, right?”

My stomach flipped. We stared at each other for a few moments. 

“I’m going to sleep,” I repeated.

“But he didn’t like dealing punishment. He left that to mom and she was more than happy to oblige. Goten always had a certain look on his face after and oddly, I see something a lot like it on yours right now. Fear is a good weapon against children. When they’re afraid to talk back, you have total obedience, and kids can do a lot of things for you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Do you mind?”

Gohan leaned down to my eye level, scowling deeply. “Pan is afraid to go outside. Any ideas why?”

“Why should I know?”

“I’m just trying to dredge up the logical conclusion sitting in front of your face. You know, if anyone ever laid a hand on my daughter… I don’t know what I’d do. I think it would all turn black and there’d be a lot of blood.” He put a hand on my shoulder to keep me looking at him. “She’s told me some things. No one’s hurt her, but I think he’s going to hurt other people.”

The image of the girl’s guts spewed all over the meadow flashed in my mind. I quickly pushed it away and shook free of Gohan’s grasp. He needed to stop babying Pan. She was probably making up a story for attention because her loser parents never let her outside. That’s why she was afraid to go out.

“You’re mistaken,” I said.

“I have no way to prove what Pan has told me so I guess you could be right. It’s just so nice of dad to volunteer to watch you for a week. He confided a lot of things in my daughter but he never took any action with her. She wasn’t the target. After all these years, I can’t believe I was so blind.”

“There’s nothing to see. If you don’t go away I’m gonna call Goku.”

Suddenly I was trapped between Gohan and the wall. He was shaking his head. He clapped a hand over my mouth when I tried to scream and looked sort of disgusted.

“I get it,” he said. “You’re young and you look like Bulma. You aren’t unattractive. But why go to all this trouble? A lot of teenage girls have low self-esteem and they’ll put up with anything you throw at them. Maybe it’s part of being a Saiyan. Maybe… I’m trying to suppress it.”

Gohan gently kissed my forehead and I started shaking with terror. Oh no, oh no. He laughed but it didn’t sound amused. It was creepy. I screamed into his palm and he moved his hand to kiss me full on the mouth, aggressive and angry. Horrified, I pushed against his chest and struggled to pull away.

When he stopped, he was laughing again. He wiped his mouth and let me down from the wall to run a hand through his thick hair. His glasses were foggy. I wanted to puke. 

“I guess I can see the appeal,” Gohan said.

Again I started crying. Why did I keep doing that? I sank to the floor and hid my head between my knees, sobbing into my pajama pants. So many bad things were happening. Videl was downstairs and she and Valese were pregnant but Gohan was upstairs taking out his anger on me. I wanted to go home. I wanted to tell my father and watch him tear them apart.

The bedroom door opened and shut. Gohan rejoined the group and I could hear all of them laughing again. I tangled my fingers in my hair and screamed into my kneecap, biting down furiously. I was so frustrated with being treated like a commodity. It was all the Son family. They were sick.

A while passed before everyone left the house. I could finally breathe. The bedroom door opened again and I felt Goku look down at me. He hoisted me to my feet and his eyebrows knitted together curiously. He smoothed my hair back and held me close so I could cry into his chest. At least he understood. He cared about me more than anyone in my family.

“I know you’re worried about the girl,” Goku said, “but she’s in a better place now.”

Could I trust him? His own son attacked me. He might take it the wrong way and fly off the handle.

Instead, I nodded like he figured out what was bothering me. Goku carried me downstairs and set me on the couch so he could make lunch. I was shell-shocked. Gohan had kissed me and it wasn’t pleasant. He was a seriously angry man and he did a good job hiding it. I opened my palms to look at them and couldn’t make them stop quivering. I was always shaking like a leaf.

Everyone was tripping over themselves to make my life worse. Mom threw me out for the week, Goku was confusing me with kissing and presents, and Gohan was mad about Goku being nice to me. Was he jealous? I never saw kissing as something negative but maybe he used it to scare me.

If he did, it worked.

Goku brought out more fruit and veggies with some juice. I ate a bit—my appetite had severely diminished over the past weeks. He watched me eat and pulled a blanket around my shoulders to shield me from the cold. He was so nice. How could anyone not like him?

“You shake a lot,” he said.

“I know.”

“Isn’t it great that Valese is pregnant? And Videl, too!”

I shrugged. “Valese is too young.”

“Too young?” Goku scratched his head. “But girls’ bodies let them make babies at a certain age for a reason. When that happens, it’s okay for them to have them.”

It was hard to breathe again. I shoved some carrots in my mouth to avoid having a weird conversation with Goku and hoped he’d drop it. He stretched and told me he was going to take a shower, leaving me alone in the living room. When the water started upstairs, I heard someone knock on the door. I hesitated until the third knock before getting up to answer it.

Gohan was standing there. My spine caved and I shrank back so he could enter. He raised an eyebrow and stalked over to the coffee table to get Videl’s scarf. On the way back, he abruptly changed course and pinned me against the wall by the TV. My lower lip quivered. No, I was sick of crying.

He grinned. “You know, I loved my mother. She pushed me to have brains instead of being a mindless brute. When I found out she committed suicide over something my father did, I was afraid I’d never be able to be at peace. But you know, karma is a funny thing. I know exactly how to get under his skin.”

The shower stopped. Gohan ruffled my hair and stepped out, black shoes clicking on the porch. I remained still and stared blankly into space. He’d never been scary before. Why was I suddenly at a loss for words? Why was I suddenly afraid of the Son family?

Goku came downstairs with only his pants on and dried his hair with a towel. He looked at me and asked why the door was open. I started laughing.


	28. 11

My next few therapy sessions were skipped like the first. Goku bought me even more things and openly held my hand in public, stirring up all sorts of feelings I was terrified to confront. Was I attracted to him? Wasn’t it wrong? Why were the lines being blurred so much? I wanted to talk to Shoppa but Goku took my phone away. For the rest of the week, I was scared and confused.

It was easier to avoid Goku than I thought. He didn’t want to push me too much. He’d sleep on the couch and I had the bed to myself at night so I could curl up into a ball and cry alone. I hoped I’d shrivel up and disappear into nothing. My whole life had been turned upside down.

At the end of the week, Pan came to visit and bring the homework I’d missed. I’d have to finish it before I went back. Bummer. She seemed much happier and was wearing normal clothes instead of the baggy guy stuff her parents let her run around in. Goku slung his arm around my shoulders and she didn’t even flinch. Now I was the meek one. My mouth was sealed shut.

Thankfully, her father didn’t tag along. But she didn’t want to stay at the house.

“Your mom said you can stay at my house for the last week if you want,” Pan said, sipping tea. “I can help you with your homework so you can catch up.”

My chest hurt. Goku looked down at me and back to his granddaughter, who was happy as peach. She knew he was winning me over and she felt great about it. 

“Bulla should probably go home,” Goku said. “She needs to be with her parents.”

“Awww, well maybe she can sleep over once or twice. She’s wound so tight all the time now.”

As she spoke I remembered to breathe again. 

“You’re gonna have a sibling soon!” Goku was smiling excitedly. He loved kids.

Pan nodded, beaming. “I can’t wait. I hope it’s a boy because girls are kind of lame—no offense, Bulla—and we can spar and play outside!”

My palms were sweating. I wiped them off on my pants and muttered that I needed to go get packed. They watched me walk upstairs and kept talking when I was gone. I rushed in the bedroom to start throwing close in my suitcase, desperate to leave. Goku was right again. All I needed was to go home and sleep in my own bed for the first time in forever.

After Pan left Goku came upstairs to check on my progress. I zipped my suitcase shut and didn’t pay much attention until he put his hands on my shoulders. Again, it felt like my spine caved in. I shrank inside. I was shriveling up into a husk of what I used to be.

“Will you come visit?”

“Sure, if I have time. School is gonna be rough and I want to see my parents.”

“Oh. Well I’d really like to see you.” Goku squeezed my shoulders tightly. It was a threat. “Don’t you want to see me?”

I nodded and grimaced. He was hurting me. Maybe it would be better if I told my parents and cleared everything up before it spun out of control. Gohan was mad at me, too, and he mentioned something about getting under Goku’s skin. I didn’t want to be involved. 

I just wanted to go to school and be a regular teenager again. I’d seen a woman commit suicide, saw a girl with her guts torn out, and made out with a man three times my age. It was time to go back to my roots; to remember that I was Bulla Briefs, not some stupid floozy.

Soft lips pressed against the side of my throat and I turned back to jello. Oh well, I was too deeply involved to get out by now. If I told my parents it would just start a big battle and Videl would be mad at me, too, and so would Goten and Shoppa wouldn’t want to talk to me…

Goku turned me to face him. He looked confused. “You’ve been staying away from me for the past few days. Is everything okay? Did you not want me to kiss you? Or do you want more?”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Or that. We should act like it never happened because my father is gonna find out like he always does.”

“But… you liked it, didn’t you?” He rubbed the back of his head, eyes flickering to my mouth. “If you liked it, why don’t you want to do it again? Both of us just have to be quiet and no one will know. Your mother likes when you’re with me.”

“Goku, please. Someone will find out and it won’t end well. I mean, I technically didn’t mind it but that doesn’t make it right. There are a lot of bad things people like: alcohol, candy, drugs.”

He was crestfallen. “It isn’t bad. You don’t say no. None of you do.”

Talking to Goku about my feelings felt like I was prodding an open wound. It was sort of uncomfortable ever since he kissed me. I turned to pick up my suitcase and he spun me back to kiss me passionately on the lips, ramming me up against the footboard of the bed. It hurt, again. My hands managed to brace me but I could hear the slab of wood protesting to the force Goku was pushing on it.

It happened fast. He carried me around the bed and pushed me down, smiling when I stared at him in alarm. His eyes were empty. The foul intentions swirling within made it hard for me to see anything else. I couldn’t hear anything except my own frantically beating heart.

“You’re still having trouble trusting me,” he said. He was hovering above me like an incubus from my nightmares. His hands were pinning my arms down. “Bulla, what did we talk about a few nights ago? I’m trying to be patient but I need you to have full faith in me.”

I twisted my wrists desperately until it burned. My behind still hurt. I didn’t want more pain.

“I’m sorry!” I said. “I was just being logical—”

“Shh, you’re still not listening to me. Be quiet. If you stop talking, you won’t be able to make me upset. You liked kissing me the other night, right? Be honest. Bad things happen to girls who lie.”

I nodded fiercely, keeping my lips firmly pressed together. Goku seemed pleased with the response and gently pressed his lips to my forehead as a sign that I was doing well. He was on top of me. His broad shoulders blocked out the light. My whole body was trembling again like I was cold.

He kissed me again and I wasn’t sure if I wanted it but I gave in anyway. He released my arms and his hands slowly crept under the hem of my shirt; he was too impatient to keep waiting. I squirmed when his fingers curiously curled around my breasts. Why was I letting him grope me? It felt pretty good but my stomach was churning.

Goku grinded his pelvis into mine. “You’re so much more agreeable this time.”

It was supposed to be the day I left everything behind. Instead, his hands were all over me, raising goosebumps across my skin and bringing out more weird feelings I was afraid to confront. He slipped his fingers into my underwear and touched a spot that felt good until I started panting. The longer he was touching me, the dirtier I felt. I needed a shower.

“Touch me,” he whispered.

I balked. Goku grabbed my wrist and pulled it down until my hand was resting on a hot bulge in his pants. When I tried to yank free he pushed it into my palm and groaned. When could I go home? When could I sleep alone and not have to worry about someone grabbing at me?

No, it was better to accept it and let him do what he wanted. Goku was nice to me and nothing he was doing actually hurt. I liked it but my damn conscience got in the way. If I let it go and trusted him, I’d be much happier and much less confused. It would probably be better to tell him about—

“Grandpa, Mrs. Bulma sent us to get Bulla!”

Goku’s heavy eyelids flew open. He immediately climbed off me and got to his feet, sucking on his fingers that had been down my pants. I rose and had to fix my pants, rehook my bra, fix my hair… he got a lot accomplished in a short amount of time. He looked at me longingly before leaving the room to greet Pan and whoever had tagged along to pick me up. Damn. I was starting to enjoy myself.

After I was back to normal I headed downstairs with my suitcase. Soon I would be home with my parents and I could go on my laptop and talk to my friends instead of screwing around with Goku. Well, I kind of wanted to still do that, too. Just not as much as I was now. I heaved my suitcase onto the floor and almost ran right back upstairs to hide.

Gohan had his arm around Pan’s shoulders protectively. She noticed me and smiled but he kept his eyes firmly fixed on his father, who was too busy watching me struggle to notice. It was funny: everyone in the room knew our little secret but none of them cared. It wasn’t a burden to Pan anymore, Goku was the one involved, and Gohan intended on using it to get revenge.

“Your mom wants you to stay with us,” Pan said. “She’s worried you’ll get too depressed being at home but she figured you’d want to be closer to the city for a while. Daddy said he’ll bring you to the doctor’s since mom is mostly hanging out with Valese at her house. Isn’t that great?”

“I want to go home.” Also, I wanted to cry.

“It’s only another week. Then we can go back to school together.” Pan looked up at her father excitedly. “We can all play games and talk!”

Goku was fidgeting, trying not to say anything, but he couldn’t help himself. He was afraid of losing me. As far as I knew, he didn’t know what Gohan had done. Thinking about what might happen when he wasn’t around to keep an eye on me made him nervous.

“Bulla should go home,” he blurted. “She’s tired. She doesn’t need to keep Pan entertained for another week. She wants to catch up on homework.”

Gohan’s eyes narrowed. “Why is she tired? She’s had a nice, relaxing week in the mountains and she’s been going to the doctor every day. She should be feeling rested. I think she needs to hang around people her own age and get used to being a normal teenager again before school starts.”

Pan glanced between them and picked up my suitcase to help me carry it out. She grabbed my arm and pulled me outside as Goku put his hands on his hips and glared at his son. As we flew away from the house, the front door slammed shut.


	29. 12

Hanging around Pan turned out to be exactly what I needed. 

Gohan and Videl had a pretty big house. It rivaled the size of mine and honestly, Videl spent more time decorating and making it feel like an actual home than my mother did. We went in the kitchen to make ourselves dinner—fried chicken and steamed vegetables—and she Skyped her mother while we ate in their big dining room. Videl was happy to see me with her daughter. She wanted Pan to be normal.

“How’re you doing nowadays?” she asked, crocheting a blanket without even looking at it.

You could tell Videl was pregnant. Her cheeks were flushed and the smile never left her face. She turned into quite the homemaker when she settled down with Gohan. Videl was by far my favorite member of the Son family. The rest of them were kind of abnormal.

I shrugged, stuffing chicken in my mouth. “Not too bad. I wish my mother would let me go to school but hanging out in the woods with Goku was fine. It’s super boring.”

“I promise things won’t be boring at our house.” Videl glanced down at her blanket and pulled a few stitches out. “Pan is always looking to go shopping or whatever else and I don’t have the energy to do it right now. You two will have a great time. Gohan can focus on work, too, so Panny and I won’t be living in a cardboard box.”

“You’re hilarious,” Pan said sourly.

“I know, sweetheart. Your father reminds me of that every day. Well, I need to go pat Valese’s back while she pukes. Goten has a weak stomach—I think it runs in the family. Have fun, girls!”

We waved goodbye and Pan shut the laptop, muttering about her mother being a jokester. She watched me take out my cell phone and quickly took hers out, which was a regular flip phone. I glanced at her briefly and realized she wanted my number. It was probably a good idea.

After we exchanged number she awkwardly rubbed the back of her head. Now she was watching me shoveling food in my mouth. I was too hungry to care so I kept on going until she started talking. I’d been too stressed out to eat very much at Goku’s.

“Grandpa isn’t a bad person,” Pan said. “He’s… well, he doesn’t understand things.”

My throat tightened. I had a hard time swallowing my food. “Yeah, I know. I’m not upset or anything.” Lie. That was a huge lie. “He’s nice to me. It’s just really weird sometimes with the age difference.”

“That’s what my daddy said. He didn’t tell mom, though. He didn’t tell anyone and neither did I. Ever since I told him he’s been locking himself in his office a lot with the music up really loud. It’s all old symphonies. Mozart, I think.”

“I wouldn’t be very happy if I found out my father was chasing teenagers.” I took a sip of my juice and leaned back on the couch to text Shoppa. “Would you be?”

Pan stuck out her tongue in disgust and picked up our plates to put them in the washer. My heart was racing and I was happy that she was only a quarter Saiyan. Half-breeds like me could hear the squelching of blood slipping through arteries if someone’s heart was beating fast enough. She asked if I wanted to hang out in her room and I agreed. It was the safest place to be.

We talked for a while about everything that had happened. She didn’t blame me for Chi-Chi’s death even though she knew as well as I did that it was what ultimately drove her to hang herself. She was mostly upset with Goku for even straying from her in the first place. I considered telling her about the dead pregnant girl in the woods but I didn’t want to drive her even further from her grandfather.

The conversation only touched on Goku and me for a few minutes, much to my relief. Pan pushed me to tell my parents and save myself the pain of keeping it all inside. Yet she still admitted that Goku wasn’t a bad person—his heart was made of gold but it wasn’t in the right place. She kept the secret for years before finally caving and telling her father. It didn’t bother her until Chi-Chi killed herself over it.

She never thought Goku would act on what he was telling her. He was always joking around. She never knew when to take him seriously. Neither did I.

Both of us took showers and got ready for bed. My parents had dropped off fresh clothes for my next week away from home. Why wasn’t I allowed to go back there? I wanted to talk to Pan about my family but I didn’t want her to think I was weird so I kept my mouth shut. She already knew I was making out with her grandpa. I couldn’t push my luck with our tenuous friendship.

It was nice to talk to another girl. I was starting to feel comfortable again. We both fell asleep in her big bed as rain began to pour outside…

Hours passed before I woke up. It was the typical inspiration for my brain to pull me out of deep sleep—I needed to use the bathroom. I yawned and carefully got out of bed so I didn’t wake Pan, then made my way down the hallway toward their half-bath. As I padded down the cold hardwood floor I could hear music playing from another room. The door was shut.

_Really bad idea_ , said the voice in my head. _Go back to bed before you find something you’ll regret._

I decided to go to the bathroom before I did any snooping. When I came back out into the hall, the door was slightly ajar and I could hear some kind of classical music. I gently nudged it open a bit more and peered inside to see what was going on. 

Gohan was sitting ramrod straight in a big black chair with his eyes closed. His hands were clasped neatly in his lap. The huge window behind him was open, letting moonlight pour in to illuminate the paperwork scattered across his desk. His eyes opened and black irises flickered to me. He blinked and a gruesome smile spread across his face. I shrank back again.

“Come in,” he said.

It wasn’t a request. I stepped inside his office and shut the door behind me, terrified to the core. Gohan pressed a button on his desk and the music was off so we were plunged into an eerie silence. He gestured at the chair sitting perfectly centered in front of his desk. I hesitated for a moment, but quickly took a seat when he raised a black eyebrow.

I fiddled with the hem of my shirt. Thankfully I kept forgetting that Gohan had shoved me up against a wall and jammed his tongue in my mouth. That would make talking to his daughter totally impossible. 

“Wandering?” he asked.

“No. I went to the bathroom and heard you blasting music.”

“It helps me relax.” Gohan took a cigarette from a compartment in his desk and placed it between his teeth. He used a flash of energy to light it and blew some smoke out. “I’d offer you one, but you’re too young. Sorry.”

Annoying. I waited impatiently for him to talk or do what he wanted. I was exhausted and Pan’s bed was way comfier than Goku’s. Gohan took a few drags off his cigarette before he looked at me again, this time with a little more amusement. I hated the smell of cigarettes.

“You look so cool,” I said dryly, watching him flick ashes into a tray.

He rolled his eyes. “When you have a wife with a baby on the way and a teenage daughter, you’ll understand. Now, I’ve spoken with Goku and he seems to think you two are an item. Is this true? If you think that as well, I’d like you to understand the ramifications of what you’re claiming.”

I scowled deeply and waved smoke out of my face. “Don’t use SAT words on me at two in the morning. I’m not dating your father, I’m not marrying him, and I’m not sleeping with him. Gross. I don’t know why he thinks that but we all know Goku isn’t exactly all there. Don’t worry; I’ll never be your mommy.”

“No, you won’t. Goku will suffer in silence for the rest of his immortal years.” Gohan put out his cigarette and popped a mint in his mouth, then began organizing papers. “I think your mother is pushing you into his arms to some degree. I’m not sure why, but it probably has to do with your age. You know how teenagers are. They get involved in dangerous things. I worry about Pan all the time.”

“You’re making her into a freak. She needs friends. The only guy she even knows is her daddy and you’re the only one in her cell phone. My father is the proudest, most arrogant man in the universe and even he lets me go out and have fun. She can take care of herself.”

“We aren’t talking about Pan right now, Bulla. We’re talking about you and my father. I don’t want you to speak to him, look at him, or indulge his desires. None of these needs to reach either of your parents as long as we don’t drag it on any longer. Goten and I are both expecting. No one needs more stress.”

I folded my arms, not happy with being threatened. “Don’t tell me what to do. I like Goku. He’s nice, unlike some people I know who corner me and shove me into walls.” I tapped my chin and pointed at Gohan, acting surprised. “If I’m not mistaken, you fall into that category.”

Gohan suddenly got to his feet and slammed his hands on the desk. I jerked back in my chair, forgetting that I was talking to yet another unstable member of the Son family. He grabbed my arm to jerk me forward and held a fistful of my hair, forcing me to look into his angry black eyes. The chair rolled away quietly toward the door.

“If I’m not mistaken,” he hissed, “you’re seriously beginning to piss me off.”

I laughed. “I’m not afraid of you. Your father is much scarier. You’re just a pathetic nerd who misses his mommy. Goku makes my skin crawl with the sound of his voice.”  
It only took Gohan a second to crush his lips against mine. He dragged me over the desk, sending papers flying to the floor, and set me in his lap. We were angry. He couldn’t kiss me hard enough so he yanked my hair to expose my neck and ravaged me with his teeth. There’d be hickies. I’d have to lie again: It was Goku. Oopsies! Pan was really gonna hate me.

One of Gohan’s hands slipped down the back of my pants to squeeze my behind. I hissed in pain—it still hurt from the fateful night with Goku. He laughed coldly and crushed me into his lap until I could feel the hardness pressing against me again. It was hot and big.

“I don’t like you,” he said. “You’re a spoiled brat. I love my wife.”

“Oh yeah, because I’m totally head over heels for you.” I tangled my fingers in his hair and leaned in close to his ear. “You’re the exact opposite of my type, Gohan. Your father has a better chance of getting in my pants than you do.”

A few seconds later I was lying flat on my back on his desk. His big hands pinned my wrists down to the cool surface and I was ashamed to be enjoying what we were doing. He leaned down close to my face so I could see the beginnings of wrinkles near his eyes. Half-Saiyans aged faster than pure bloods. 

“Don’t you remember what I said?” he asked. “I’m getting under Goku’s skin. I’m going to take you tonight and you’re going to cry to him about it. When he gets angry, he’ll come after me and I’ll have an excuse to break him apart.”

Gohan took off his belt and unzipped his pants, clearly thinking I was going to willingly rip off my pajama pants and let him have his way with me. I wasn’t sure. Did I want to do that? It was something I wanted to wait for and this would be strictly for revenge. Before I could say anything more he clapped a hand over my mouth and tore both my pants and underwear down so they hung rather ungracefully around my ankles. Apparently I didn’t have a choice.

There was searing pain and Gohan was draped over me, panting into my neck. He was moving in and out of me but it hurt too much to worry. I lay there quietly and stared at the ceiling. Weird. I remembered when Videl babysat me while mom worked. Gohan gave me baths sometimes.

Now he was violently taking what he wanted. Maybe I owed it to him. He kissed my neck and groaned quietly. It felt like he took an eternity to finish. I always thought I’d enjoy losing my virginity. It’d be in a big bed with a canopy, and we’d drink some wine first so it didn’t hurt as much. Gohan thrust forcefully, making me whimper. Yet another dream shattered.

“Damn,” he said, out of breath. “I can’t deal with two babies. I don’t think Videl’s bought any condoms in a while.” He pulled open a drawer, still inside me, and rummaged through it for a second before slamming it shut again. He ran his hands up my shirt to cup my breasts. “God, I’m starting to get dad’s obsession. I could do this all night.”

It seemed to dawn upon him that he could. Gohan slipped out of me and tugged up his pants just enough to cover himself. He turned to draw the curtains on the big window and picked me up off his desk to carry me out of the messy office. He locked the door before continuing down the hall to the last door and set me down on the floor inside. There was pulsating pain between my legs.

“I want to go back to bed,” I bleated. 

Gohan locked the bedroom door, too, and turned to face me. He yanked off my shirt and forced my arms down so he could admire my nakedness. Gross, gross, gross. What was I thinking?! At least Goku was widowed. Videl was very much alive and pregnant. She was nice to me! She was crocheting blankets for her new baby and I was… I was…

“I need this,” Gohan said.

“I want to go home.”

“You are home, Bulla.”

He loosened his tie. He wasn’t smiling.

When you play with fire, you’ll always get burned.


	30. 13

Something crawling under my skin woke me up, thrashing and desperately scratching. I screamed in terror and a hand covered my mouth to muffle it until my throat was sore. Bugs were squirming in my flesh. I flew up in bed to slap them away but it kept coming back. They were there. They would always be there. I would always feel them creeping and biting…

There was a bored yawn. “Go to sleep, Bulla. You’re having a nightmare.”

A whole colony of bugs was festering on my thighs. There was only one solution and my exhaustion was making me crazy. I stabbed my fingernails through my skin and raked them downwards toward my waist, shrieking in pain as blood poured over my hands. It was the only solution. It was it.  
With pain, the bugs left. They were far, far—

“Will you please…” Gohan put his hand on my thigh and immediately drew it back when he felt the blood. “Jesus Christ, Bulla! What are you doing?!”

It sparkled in the moonlight. My chest was heaving from both the intense pain and my fear. Gohan groaned and got out of bed, leaving me staring at my bloodied palms. Pretty. My legs were shaking a lot. I forgot the throbbing between my legs when I fell asleep but it came back when I was conscious. Maybe I could drink a lot of Nyquil and sleep forever.

Blood dripped on the blue bed sheets, staining them purple. I smeared more on the comforter and giggled a bit to myself. What was wrong with me? Nothing really. If my bodily fluids were flowing out of me I might as well enjoy playing with them. I hated my body.

Gohan came back and swore when he saw me drawing smiley faces on his pillow with my blood. Duct tape was unrolled and pushed against my mouth. He pushed me and I immediately fell flat on my back. Now I was conditioned. Something rough wiped off some of the blood before he poured a liquid on that made it burn. I screamed into the duct tape. Minutes passed. He wiped it again.

“You’re gonna get a nasty infection,” he said. “Maybe I still have a senzu bean lying around here.”

He looked through his dresser for a few minutes and pushed a bean in my mouth, watching to make sure I ate it. My skin started knitting back together and he set me on the floor so he could peel off the ruined sheets. None of it had permeated the mattress. That would’ve been hard to explain.

“I needed to throw these away anyhow. Go take a shower and get back in bed with Pan.” Gohan was opening another set of sheets. Of course they kept spares. “She might wake up and worry about where you went off to.”

“Okay,” I said.

Soon I was back in the shower rinsing myself off. The blood swirled around the drain. There was a lot of it, surprisingly enough. I cleaned under my fingernails but I still felt dirty when I got out and walked down the hall to Pan’s bedroom. I’d feel better if I burned my skin off and grafted a new layer on.

As I was about to climb back into bed my ears picked up voices arguing on the other end of the house. I really wanted to sleep but one of them sounded like Goku. He would protect me. I tiptoed out of the room and shuffled as quickly as I could toward the bedroom. I’d rather go back to Goku’s house than spend another day with Gohan.

It turned out that I was right. I hid by the side of the door when I saw Goku holding his son by the collar of his shirt. Gohan was grinning hugely. 

“I bet Vegeta felt her energy,” Goku snapped, shaking his son violently. “You’re a fool. He’s gonna come here and snap you into even more pieces after I’m done with you.”

Yes. Kill him, Goku.

“Come on, daddy,” Gohan replied icily, “we don’t want to bring her family into this. Vegeta and Bulma are fast asleep. If they cared any less about her, I think she’d be living in a box on the sidewalk.” He freed himself from his father’s grasp, still grinning. “They’re afraid to care.”

“That doesn’t mean you can… attack her to get back at me. I know you hate me but I’d prefer it if you left Bulla out of this. She’s young and now she’s going to be really scared.”

“Aren’t they easier to abuse when they’re scared?”

“I don’t abuse her,” Goku said. He sounded firm and looked oddly serious. “Bulla is perfectly willing. It just takes some talking and convincing to get her to understand there’s nothing wrong with it.”

“Convincing? Grown women fall in love on their own. What you’re talking about it called child grooming. You buy them presents; take them out for dinner; listen to their problems, and one day, slip a threat in to your relationship.” Gohan laughed and ran a hand through his spiky black hair. “It’s the ultimate form of brainwashing and you’re too dumb to realize you’re doing it.”

Goku jammed his hands in his pockets as if he was afraid he’d do something bad with them. “So what does that make you? I do nice things for her. You were violent and mean. I can smell the blood in the room. It isn’t like her to go quietly.”

Why didn’t he just kill him? I wanted Gohan gone. I wanted to forget about what happened. I’d live a hundred more weeks at Goku’s house before I spent another minute in Gohan’s. He was frustrated and angry; it all culminated in last night’s violent events. I wondered if he ever treated Videl that way. I never would’ve pinned Gohan sadistic, but now…

“I didn’t want her. I didn’t drive my wife to suicide to get her.” Gohan walked to his dresser and I shrank back so he couldn’t see me. There was flash of light. He was smoking again. “This is your fault. You were so obsessed with tricking a little girl into letting you grope her that you lost your wife. How do you live with yourself? How did you wake up in the morning next to Bulla?”

“You would never understand,” Goku said.

Gohan laughed again, exhaling a plume of smoke. “You’re right, I wouldn’t. I’m married to a woman who I can’t imagine being without. We have a beautiful daughter that’s the same age as Bulla. And you know, I’ll never understand how you can want to be with someone that’s… what, 40 years younger than you?”

“She’s sweet. I like talking to her.”

“So the innocence is what you want. Hm. Well, what are you going to do when Bulma tries to put her away? That’s the next step. She keeps gabbing with Videl about it. Bulla must be completely unstable by now and you know as well as I do that she’s been skipping her doctor’s appointments. You’ll never see her again when she’s living in a home.”

“WHAT?!” I shrieked.

Both men turned to look at the door and I covered my mouth, hoping they wouldn’t investigate. But Gohan wasn’t willing to let me walk off scot-free. He held the cigarette between his lips and dragged me inside the bedroom by my bicep, then shut the door and locked it. Goku was on me in an instant; I wheezed for air in his tight embrace. I felt a bit safer.

Gohan cleared his throat. “Excuse me, but can we continue our discussion?”

“Bulla, are you okay?” Goku freed me from his arms and knelt down before me, eyebrows furrowed with concern. He brushed my hair away from my face. “I’m so sorry; I’ll do whatever it takes to make this up to you. Do you want to go home? I’ll bring you there—”

“Why is mom getting rid of me?” I demanded, whirling around to face Gohan. 

“Oh, look, she speaks. I worried you had a mental breakdown last night. How are your legs feeling?” The half-Saiyan smirked. “Did you clean the blood?”

Something like a growl reverberated from Goku’s chest. I crossed my arms, beginning to feel like myself again. There was no reason for me to be afraid of Gohan if I had his father behind me. 

“I’m not going to feel bad about myself. I would never let you get to me like that. You’re going to tell me why my parents don’t want me coming home and you’re going to do it right now.” I stood firmly with my feet apart, trying to look confident.

It was still hard to look him in the eye. He took a drag from his cigarette, watching me intently, and I considered scurrying from the room to hide. I could remember him inside me; it was an uncomfortable pain made even worse by my inability to escape. This wasn’t the Gohan I had known growing up. Chi-Chi meant even more to him than she did to Goku.

“You certainly do bounce back from traumatic things,” Gohan said. “Your mother is concerned that you couldn’t remember anything leading up to seeing Chi-Chi’s death. She’s afraid to confront it with you and a few doctors have suggested she enroll you in a special sort of school.”

“Special?” Goku echoed.

“I guess I dumbed it down too much for you, dad.” Gohan put the cigarette out and leaned against the wall casually. “A mental asylum. That’s where Bulla’s headed in… about a week, I’d imagine.”

“My father is okay with this? Why are they even sending me? I’ve kept quiet and I haven’t been a nuisance to either of them. Mom shipped me off to Goku’s before I even had a chance to go home and relax. Is she really that scared of me?”

Sunlight was trickling in the window above Gohan’s bed. I’d literally been up all night—maybe I got a few hours of sleep somewhere in between all the horrible things that happened. I didn’t want to go to a mental hospital. Why didn’t my parents want me anymore?

Goku was pacing behind me. “Bulma must be joking. There’s nothing wrong with Bulla.”

I grimaced. There was definitely a few things wrong with me now but he was right for the most part. I hadn’t done anything to make my parents question my sanity, had I? There must have been another reason. Maybe it was from something I’d done a while ago. I knew going to parties was a bad idea.

“Oh, Bulma is very convinced that something is wrong with her daughter. Even Trunks agrees with them and he doesn’t talk to any of us these days. She originally wanted Bulla to stay with you, Goku, but how would she get an education? She still has another year of high school and they can teach her in the asylum. Videl is pregnant so she can’t stay with us. There’s nowhere for her to go.”

“I’m not going,” I said. “There’s no way I’ll let them do that.”

“They have custody of you so they can do whatever they want. There are a few solutions but I don’t think you’ll like any of them.”

“Anything,” Goku said, stopping to face his son.

“First and foremost, you could do the obvious and try to become emancipated from your parents.” Gohan rubbed his chin, thoughtful. “It’s very hard, though. Secondly, you could try to get married. Your mother might be okay with that since it gets you out of her hair. But I bet Vegeta wouldn’t agree. Getting pregnant could help tie things up, too.”

I shook my head. “None of those sound appealing.”

“You could marry me.” Goku gently touched my arm. “I can protect you.”

Gohan sighed heavily like a disappointed teacher. “Dad, no one is going to let Bulla get married. Your only other option at this point is to run away. I don’t mean hiding out at Goku’s house—you need to leave Earth and relocate to another planet.”

Leave Earth? I hadn’t even considered that. There were a lot of inhabitable planets in the universe and Goku could use instant transmission to bring me to any of them. I could live on one for a while until everything settled down and come back to see if my parents felt differently.

But Earth was my home. Sure it was possible to live somewhere else but none of them were quite like the floating rock that had seen countless epic battles. I’d be leaving my friends, too. Shoppa would be mad at me if and when I came back and fitting in again might be hard.

If I was going to run away, it had to be permanent. There was no turning back; no triumphant return in a few years. I’d be leaving everything behind.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Goku said. “She doesn’t have to leave. I’m the strongest being in the universe. She can stay with me and no one will take her anywhere. If they try to, I’ll break them.”

“And every day you’d have to see the disappointed faces of your friends,” Gohan replied. “No one will approve of you two being together so why stay here? There are plenty of nice planets you can live on where nobody will be able to find you.”

The phone rang from somewhere downstairs and the toilet flushed. It was time to go back to the real world. Gohan shrugged and left the room to see who was calling, leaving me alone with Goku. He put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. My eyes brimmed with tears and I turned around to hug him, promptly crying into his orange shirt. It wasn’t fair.

I just wanted to go home.


	31. 14

There was no way I’d go down without a fight. Goku knew me very well; frighteningly well. I was not going to lie down and let my parents throw me out like yesterday’s trash. I wouldn’t be told what to do and I definitely wouldn’t flee to another planet. I was Bulla Briefs. I was not an outcast.

We ate breakfast in silence, scattered across the first floor. Gohan was reading the paper in the kitchen, eyeing his daughter while she watched cartoons. Goku and I were sitting in the den, staring out the window without saying a word to one another. He was about to lose me. Everything he had worked so hard for was slipping between his fingers.

Pan seemed to notice the tension between her father and me. She was afraid to question it. She must have some inkling from all the screaming I did. Each of us was in our own world of torture with no escape. We all had problems we were refusing to confront. 

I picked at my scrambled eggs, full of too many emotions to sort. Gohan violently raped me to get back at his father who was madly in love with me which had caused his wife to commit suicide. Within that vein, Pan was involved, forced to listen to Goku rant and rave about how badly he wanted me. 

My brain felt stuffed and in turn, so did my stomach. I wanted to sleep with Gohan but it was sort of like a weird fantasy thing more than anything else. It upset me and I grew nauseous when I thought of it but I wasn’t sure if… well, there were more important things to worry about. I could tackle my feelings later.

Goku smiled. “Y’know, we could leave right now.”

“No. I need to see my parents. I need closure.”

“I guess.” He rubbed the back of his head, confused by my thinking. “What if they won’t let you go? They might make you stay.”

“No they won’t.”

They would see reason. They would understand and even dad would apologize. I’d be able to go home by the end of the day, no questions asked.

When I told Gohan I was leaving, he nodded. That was the only response I could get out of the man who had taken my innocence. My hands clenched into fists and Goku ripped the newspaper from his son’s grasp, drawing Pan’s attention. Gohan glared at his father and said, “fine.” Pan shuddered.

The sun was still hanging low in the sky and the air was crisp and cool. Goku followed me out of course and kissed me passionately before I left. He watched me fly off with his hands stuffed in his pockets, ultimately turning around to go back in the house. He still wanted to pummel Gohan.

Both of my parents woke up early in the morning. I landed outside the house and fixed my ponytail as I headed in, feeling oddly out of place. They didn’t want me there. It gave me a raw sort of sickness in my stomach to know that my own parents wanted to get rid of me. I was a nuisance to them.

Mom and dad were both sitting at the table sipping coffee. Dad’s eyes flickered to me first and one glance at mom made her jump to her feet. She gave me a forced smile and my father actually put his newspaper down to glare at me like I was intruding. I suddenly wasn’t sure of what to do with my hands. I began twiddling my thumbs.

Hi, mom. Hi, dad. Thanks to you, I’ve been molested more times than I care to remember by various members of the Son family. You know how Videl is pregnant? Yeah, well, funny story. It turns out I might be carrying my own little half-Saiyan because Gohan couldn’t bother to cover up while he was raping me last night. Princess Videl was in another castle, crocheting blankets while her closeted-sadist husband had his way with me and sweet little Panny slept peacefully through the ordeal.

Or did she?

I had a feeling that I wasn’t the only one who woke up with fatal wounds on my soul.

My mother looked rigid. Uncomfortable. “How are you, sweetheart? How are things going over at Gohan’s house? He called and said everything was fine.”

I blinked. It was hard to keep a poker face when she was blatantly lying to me. Mom’s smile faded slowly and she began to look worried. Dad leaned forward.

“Is everything okay?” mom asked.

Nothing would come out of my mouth. My lips wouldn’t move to form words. Ice hardened my blood and I could no longer move. Mom shifted and glanced at dad, who rose to his feet. My head turned ever so slightly to bring him into my line of vision. Goku could sense my fear. He’d panic and ruin everything.

“No,” I said, “everything isn’t okay. There are a few things you two haven’t told me.”

Dad laughed. “We aren’t obligated to tell you anything, Bulla.”

He was caustic and rude as usual.

“You should know not to listen to Goku,” mom said, shooting dad a dirty look. “He’s been unstable since Chi-Chi died and that’s why we wanted you to go to Gohan’s instead so—”

“Gohan is even more unstable. Trust me. What I’m curious to know about is why you’re intending on throwing me in an asylum after my little vacation. Why are you getting rid of me? Is it because of Chi-Chi? I’m perfectly fine, mother.”

“Hold your tongue,” dad hissed, “or I’ll—”

“If you interrupt me one more time, I’ll have Goku here in a heartbeat to rip you apart.” I took a step closer to them, emboldened. “Tell me why. I want a reason.”

Mom started crying. “Bulla… Bulla, Goku is the reason.”

My father’s temper suddenly flared and he punched through the table, breaking it in half. A few moments of silence passed before I started laughing. Oh god, what were they accusing poor Goku of now? Hadn’t the man been through enough? I thought adults admitted their problems.

I covered my eyes. “Really? You know what, let’s just leave him out of this.”

Mom collapsed in a chair, kicking part of the ruined table out of her way. Her eyes looked vacant. “When you were born, Goku took an instant liking to you. Your father and I were busy working and raising Trunks so we were more than happy to let him babysit. Chi-Chi was gone a lot, running errands or chasing Goten around to make sure he stayed out of trouble.

“Pan was born shortly after and we all lost focus. You were with Goku nearly every day until you had to start going to school. I still remember…” She paused, looking up at me sadly. “A boy in your class pushed you down during recess. Naturally, we told Goku, passing it off as being part of growing up. He thought it was malicious and cruel. He was angry. He started worrying that other boys would hurt you.

“You got older and stopped going to Goku’s as frequently, mostly because Videl wanted Pan to have a playmate. In fifth grade, a teacher caught you kissing a boy. Goku went into a rage. He came storming over here and demanded to fight your father for… for the right to you. He said we weren’t good parents and that he would make sure no one hurt you again. I’m so sorry, Bulla. I’m so sorry.”

I stared at my mother, gradually figuring things out. Goku’s obsession with me wasn’t new. It’d been in him since the day I was born. He wanted me even then but he was willing to wait for the right moment. He bullied my parents into promising me to him like I was a dumb animal.

“Kakarot told us to send you off,” dad said, refusing to look at me. “He wanted to be the hero, as usual. What a fool. If I wasn’t so damned weak at this age, I’d have scalped him long ago.”

No. It couldn’t be true. Goku wasn’t like that. 

But it all made such perfect sense. After Chi-Chi died, everything could be set in motion. Had she known about Goku demanding me from my parents? Maybe that was why she hung herself. It would be a huge burden to bear knowing that your husband was waiting until the little girl he really wanted was finally matured and ripe for the picking.

My nausea grew worse the more I turned things over in my head. Chi-Chi died. Goku could finally worm his way into my life. He didn’t want to take me outright—that would make me resent him. No, he gained my trust before twisting the situation to put himself in the spotlight. He was the hero.

“No,” I said. “I’m not going with him. Dad, do something!”

“Don’t you think I’ve tried?” My father had his arms folded angrily. This was a serious blow to his pride. “Kakarot isn’t exactly a pushover.”

Mom’s lower lip trembled. “Especially when he wants something.”

Looking between my parents’ hopeless faces made me realize that for once in my life, there was no escape. No wish on the Dragon Balls would resolve anything; no amount of begging would get me out of trouble. Did I laugh or cry? Could I do both at the same time?

I felt dizzy. What did this mean? Where would I go?

“He said you can still see us,” mom said, trying to be positive. “You can go to school and hang out with your friends. When you think about it, the only difference is where you live.”

Dad roared furiously and leapt to his feet to punch a hole through the wall. He stood there for a few moments, panting, then spun on his heel and disappeared in the lab. I slowly sank to the floor. I was melting. I didn’t want to exist anymore.

My mother began crying again and hid her face in her hands. I wanted to say something but I wasn’t sure what, so I turned and left the house behind. There was no point in staying and talking about things we couldn’t change. Goku always got what he wanted.

I flew for a long time, aimless and cold.

Before I know it, night had fallen and I didn’t know where I was. I landed near a small pond that reflected the moon on its glassy surface. It was hard to believe that I spent the whole day flying around. Hunger hit me fast and hard but I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep anything down. I sat by the edge of the pond and watched fish swirl in the shallows.

Goku must have been furious that Gohan got to me first. Did Gohan know about the plan all along? Probably. I bet they all knew, even Pan. They all helped push me to him like he ordered. I dipped my feet in the freezing water and the fish swam off. Gohan took away one of the most important parts of me that his father was after. He’d gotten his revenge.

A breeze rippled the surface of the pond and I heard another heartbeat. 

“I wish you didn’t ask so many questions.”

I stared blankly at the lily pads skating across the water. They’d all die soon. Winter was coming hard and fast this year.

Goku sat beside me. He smelled… burnt. “You shouldn’t put your feet in the water. It’s cold.”

I shrugged. My toes were turning blue and I couldn’t wriggle them. The fish were coming back curiously, taking tiny nibbles to see if I was edible.

We sat in silence for a while. It was obvious that I knew the truth so Goku didn’t try broaching the subject. But his worry over my feet grew and he reached down to pull them out of the water, turning me so he could wrap his big hands around my toes. It was like being in front of a fire. I kept my eyes on the grass, wishing that I could hurl myself into the pond and freeze. 

“I’ll take good care of you,” Goku said.

My head hurt. Damn, I needed to eat something.

“I wanted to last time but you wouldn’t let me. But now I made it better so your parents will let me have you instead of fighting me over it.” He rubbed my feet slowly, smiling to himself. “I had you first. Gohan doesn’t understand. None of them do.”

“If everyone knew, why did you want me to keep it a secret?”

“I thought it’d be better if you were in the dark. I didn’t want you to hate me.” Goku cocked his head sadly. “You hate me, don’t you?”

No point in lying. “Yes.”

“You wished for all of this to go away before but I loved you so much that it followed me all the way here. I couldn’t remember at first but then I saw you and it all came back. I will never stop loving you no matter how many times you try to make me.”

It was too late in the day to question what he actually meant. Besides, I had the rest of my natural born life to do that. If I was lucky, I’d die young.

Goku touched my chin with his fingertip and tilted my head upwards so he could look into my eyes. His were sparkling with excitement but I had a feeling mine looked less enthused. He was huge. I still couldn’t comprehend it. 

There were a lot of things about him I’d never understand; strange idiosyncrasies that ended up driving Chi-Chi to suicide. Obsessions. The desire to covertly conquer and control his friends and family. The pained loneliness in his eyes was hard to look at. No, I’d never understand something like that.

A soft kiss on the lips made my heart bleed. How could someone so gentle be so conniving and selfish? How could he take me away from my parents? How could he decide something like that when I was just a little kid and some stupid boy upset me?

“Let’s go home,” Goku whispered. 

Home. That word was meaningless to me.

He scooped me up in his arms and we were flying, flying, flying…

Home.

I drifted off to sleep against his warm chest.

We were going home.


End file.
